Innovative Methods and Practices of Academic Writing and Writing Instruction
PROJECT BASED LEARNING AS AN EDUCATIONAL APPROACH TO DEVELOP ACADEMIC WRITING SKILLS OF EFL UNIVERSITY STUDENTS
Ilkem Kayican
Sabanci University, Istanbul, Turkey
Due to the increasing number of English medium universities in Europe, the language acquisition process is one of the core concerns to consider while teaching academic writing skills to EFL students in higher education institutions. Taking into consideration the challenges related to this for both instructors and students, this research will explore the results of implementing Project Based Learning (PBL) as a teaching method to develop academic writing skills with foundation year program students in a Western higher educational institution in Istanbul, Turkey. As an educational approach, PBL fosters students’ critical thinking and research skills by asking students to read, question the writer’s assumptions, analyze and come to conclusions based on the information presented, all of which are among the fundamental competencies needed to develop academic writing skills. This research will explore the benefits of PBL for both EFL students and instructors, when implemented over a 16 week course, in order to overcome the difficulties of managing two different concurrent learning processes: language acquisition and development of academic writing skills. As one of the core instructors of the project based learning task group I will present outcomes for the relationship between the PBL and academic writing skills development based on close observations and evaluation of the students’ performance also by utilizing selfevaluation tools, interviews and questionnaires.
References
Thomas, John W. 2000 , ‘A Review of Research on ProjectBased Learning’ PhD thesis viewed 12 January 2015, retrieved from http://bie.org/index.php/site/RE/pbl_research/29 .
Markham, Thom, Project Based Learning Design and Coaching Guide, viewed 25 January 2015 , https://drive.google.com/a/sabanciuniv.edu/folderview?id=0BzJddZubUeTZjVNeHJKRDBGWms&usp=shari ng&tid=0BzJddZubUeTMjVldzd5YlEwS2s
Boothe, D, Vaughn, R, Hill, J, & Hill H, ‘Innovative English Language Acquisition Through Problembased Learning’, viewed 10 January 2015, http://conference.pixelonline.net/edu_future/common/download/Paper_pdf/ITL27Boothe,Vaughn,Hill,Hill.p df