PBL - Project-based learning

Project based learning and Task-based learning are similar in many ways, but the main differences are:

• Project-based learning may or may not explicitly focus on language; TBL does.
• Project-based learning generally takes longer than TBL.
• Project-based learning is more complex than TBL - more interdisciplinary and has more soft-skill aims than TBL (which of course also values teaching self-efficacy and so on).

You might look at the following if you are interested in some more ideas:

• The European School Education Platform
• ColorinColorado has ideas that could work well in Switzerland, too.

Example - Travel Guide

This example comes from a fourth grade class in Schwamendingen, Zurich and it took approximately four weeks (three lessons a week) to put the whole thing together. Generally, the basic procedure was:

• Every lesson started with a spelling test (no translation, simple spelling), e.g. of words like 'neighborhood' and related to the topic. We also played games like "hangman" whereby teams had to guess letters IN CHORUS with the full question "Is there a/an" and had to first agree on the letter to ask for as a group.
• Lesson 1: Spontaneous walk around the neighborhood; spontaneous "favorite places".
• Lessons 2-4: Stations: "My happy place" / Guide to Swamendingen in German printed out and interesting facts written in EN / "Meet the authors" on Book Creator".
• Lesson 5: History of Schwamendingen.
• Lesson 6: History of Schwamendingen.
• Lessons 7-8: Putting it together on Book Creator.
• Lesson 9: Walking tour of Schwamendingen for the parallel class.