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Date Posted: 14:36:45 06/17/03 Tue
Author: Ione Mendes
Subject: Task 7

Stephen Ryan cites clarifying of goals as an important aspect to be considered in communicative methodology because, no rarely, in practice it has presented problems. It is the case of Karyl Wells´ project whose goals are not very well explained, I mean, they are not explicit. (Does they have to do only to the publication to library consults? Or does it have to do with consuming process? If yes, in which sense consuming is considered? In which moment does it take part?)
I may be wrong, however it’s probable that the acquisition of an item, such a car, considering different cultural and economic aspects, could not be so complex as mentioned in the description of the project. On the other hand, it can be considered totally inappropriate if it’s not part of student’s routine. We have to remember that giving real situation for students experience the language is a key point in the communicative way of teaching, which is based on meaningfulness and practicability. If it is not something that students used to deal with, probably they are not going to be able of developing it properly or yet it will be not really significant for them.
Another point is that all steps for the project development has been given by teacher as a guideline to follow. For example, Wells in the decision-making phase attributes to students the construction of a decision grid, but he himself gives all the procedures to be taken. Maybe the students, spontaneously, could choose which is the better or more interesting way of presenting the researches results. It seems not to be consistent to communicative principles. If students could opt for activities they want; they were learning how to be more autonomous in the process. In reason to this, my opinion is that the collaborative list could be suggested as an extra activity related to the project and it does not needed to figure like the main point as I understood it was.
In the “sharing phase” the feedback is proposed in a way that each student must write a summary of his findings and make comparisons of actual cars. After, they have to choose a vehicle and justify their choices. At this moment they have to take in account the knowledge gained from their consultation with a classmate “expert”. Is it really an adequate feedback? Each student involved in the project is going to receive this feedback adequately? When students do not receive a feedback they get lost and even frustrated, depending on the situation. The feedback could be the products of their work. If the product of their work is useful and important to the community they are part of, it is positive… There are also ways of perceiving if the feedback is negative, if most students have problems to get engaged in it, if they are not satisfied with the work and etc.
I confess that I was reflecting on the difficulties of elaborating a project to fit to communicative methodology. It was easy to criticize some aspects of other’s project. How to develop a project, without committing similar mistakes? It is far from being an easy task. It is really easy being inconsistent in the teaching style but we have to try…!

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