Daniel Vincent has taught English for over fifteen years in the UK, Japan and Spain. He has experience in materials and course development and is currently working as a teacher and coordinator for the British Council in Madrid.
He is also currently working on authoring a new teens course for Cambridge University Press. In his 4th blog of the series, Teens Together, Dan looks at another example of a collaborative project that works well with teens: museum displays.This project calls upon one or more of the skills we looked at in my first post of the series, such as decision-making, negotiation, planning, time-keeping and feedback, and it’s worth reviewing that post for some suggestions of the kind of language students need to develop those skills. You’ll find general advice on how to set up and run collaborative projects in the second post of the series, while post number three is full of ideas for dealing with any problems that might arise. With that in mind, let’s go!
Welcome to our class museum…
This fun, informative project turns your classroom into a museum of the past (or even of the future) and lets your students take each other on guided tours of their own displays. The idea is for small groups of students to research a period of history – the 1980s or the 1990s, for example, or the 2050s as people imagine or predict them to be – focusing on a particular area of interest: fashion, entertainment, communication, technology, sport and so on.
Each group researches a number of objects that represent the period and their area of interest and create a display for the classroom walls. The display consists of posters with images of the various objects plus an explanatory text to go with each one, similar to the panels that accompany real museum and gallery exhibits.
In terms of collaboration, this project works best with even-numbered groups of students, preferably four or six. The procedure is as follows:
1. In pairs, students research three or four objects they think would make good exhibits for their display. At this stage, the research doesn’t have to be in detail. The students are only looking for ideas of what to exhibit.
2. The various pairs then share their suggestions with each other and, as a group, decide which objects to include. It is important that the number of objects they choose is such that they can divide back into pairs with each pair taking responsibility for the same number of posters for the display. For example, a group of six students should choose either three or six objects (depending on how much time you have allocated to the project), as this will mean each pair will take on either one or two each. This ensures that everyone has the same workload and allows the feedback in stage 4 to work efficiently.
3. In pairs, students then begin to prepare posters for their objects. This entails finding images to illustrate the objects and drafting the texts that go with them.
4. Pairs then swaps their draft texts and give each other feedback based on a number of criteria, e.g.:
Does the text…
- include a title and any necessary dates?
- describe the object?
- say how and why it was used?
- say who used it?
- explain something about the history of the object?
- use the target language for the project?
The target language, which the teacher can input at the beginning of the project, might include: adjectives to describe objects, vocabulary for the materials they are made from, or the passive voice (“Jukeboxes were invented in…”/ ”Platform shoes were often worn by…”/ “Mini-CD players began to be used during….).
5. Based on their groupmates’ feedback, and with any necessary corrections and suggestions from the teacher, the pairs then prepare the final versions of the texts and finish their posters.
6. Finally, once all the posters are complete and you have decorated the classroom walls with them, students pair up with members of a different group and take each other on ‘tours’ of their exhibition, explaining what they have learned about the objects and answering any questions their ‘visitor’ has. It’s important that the visitors ask at least one question each, as this prevents the ‘guide’ from simply regurgitating what is on the poster; they need to think on their feet as well.
Look out for my final blog post of the series, where I’ll return with another collaborative project for teens around the subject of a music festival. Go to our Cambridge Secondary page for lots of other secondary activities and ideas.