META – Malta English Teachers Agency

There is no doubt that Project Based Learning is becoming more popular. It has established its place in mainstream schools, but now it is starting to have a very important role in EFL. The main reason for designing this workshop is that PBL is starting to be a very important methodology used in Summer Schools for teenagers in Malta and abroad.

In this workshop, I will:

1) briefly explain what PBL is, what benefits it brings to EFL students, and how it develops 21st Century skills;

2) present how to set up a project-based lesson, what steps teachers need to take in order to ‘make it work’, and explore ‘what can go wrong’;

3) introduce some interactive tools which can be used to create projects;

4) brainstorm example ideas for students to use the presented tools.

Learning Outcomes – for the participants to:

• learn about the benefits of using PBL in the ELT classroom.
• learn how to formulate a Driving Question for a PBL lesson.
• write a brief outline of an example PBL lesson which you can use in your lessons in future.
• learn about available online PBL tools and resources.

This workshop is designed with inexperienced teachers in mind. While conducting Lesson Observations, I could see that some teachers struggle to write/formulate lesson aims correctly. Very often, the aims they write are too wide or too vague, which makes them impossible to achieve. In this workshop, I would like to explain that ‘SMART’ lesson aims can improve the quality of lessons and will help students benefit from the lessons more.

Learning outcomes – by the end of this workshop the participants:

• will be able to recognise well-written lesson aims;
• will be able to say what SMART lesson aims are;
• will have practised writing ‘correct’ lesson aims;
• will have written a lesson aim for their next lesson and a personal aim.

This workshop is designed for teachers who teach conversation classes and once a week (or more) take their students outside of the school. I believe that many schools in Malta offer a great opportunity for foreign students to practise their skills in a real-life, native English environment.

This session will look at a variety of speaking activities, which can be organised outdoors, and will reflect on their benefits for the students.

Learning outcomes – by the end of this workshop the participants:

• will have reflected on their own classroom experiences and compared them with comments from teachers who live all around the world;
• will be able to identify a variety of activities and be able to group them into 3 categories.