On Sunday Shinshu JALT was very fortunate to have Masako Moriwaki as our presenter in Okaya. Masako had taught overseas for 13 years and spent 10 years in a language school where she had the creative freedom to explore new and interesting ways to teach English.
The day started with a brief introduction of Project Based Learning (PBL) which including some TED Talk videos explaining the problems with the existing paradigm of teacher focused one way learning. In many ways PBL offers students an empowering approach to studying, with the teacher only acting as a facilitator and students taking charge of their learning experiences. Masako gave a brief overview of the important design elements of PBL:
* A Challenging Problem or Question
* Sustained Inquiry – rigorous extended process of posing questions and finding resources
* Authenticity – real world context
* Student Voice & Choice
* Reflection
* Critique & Revision
* Public Product – students make their project work public either via presentation or online.
Perhaps most contrary to more orthodox methods of learning is Masako explained that she never specifically told students what to do. But rather posed them a question or problem related to something the students found interest in. Then encouraged them to explore and think of how to contribute to this in English. Some examples of student projects included: organizing a Halloween party to raise money for students in Palestine (as part of a joint project called “Hands Up”), researching Palestinian recipes and trying to cook them or planning a set playlist for a school party and gauging the interest of particular songs within the school.
Masako stressed that she gave students the freedom on how to proceed in the project, but acted as a facilitator in making sure project work was documented and students were still utilizing their English. This included asking students to write English reports on the information they found or recording them doing work and asking them questions about it.
Attendees were very impressed with the levels of achievement Masako’s students were able to achieve. Both on a creative and linguistic level. We hope participants were able to gain some useful expertise in enriching their own classrooms. Shinshu JALT would like to once again thank Masako for her time in sharing such useful knowledge with our chapter.
Reported by Publicity Co-Chair and Events Reporter - Miguel Mision
