Improving English competence through problem-based learning

Mr Nurdin Somantri SMA Muhammadiyah 1 Yogyakarta, Indonesia

The ICT-based class in SMA Muhammadiyah 1 Yogyakarta 1

Millions of students in modern countries are more advanced than those in developing countries, like Indonesia, because they study by using ICT. In developed countries, students have had ICT-based learning in their schools.
Following this global trend, SMA Muhammadiyah 1 Yogyakarta has established an ICT (Information Communication Technology)-based class.
This action is in accordance with the mission of school which is ‘By empowering all potentials it has, SMA Muhammadiyah 1 Yogyakarta educates its students to have wide horizon, good ethics, and to master science and technology’. Beside that, the action taken is also related to the mission of school, which is to:

• empower the whole internal resources to educate students to have an Islamic personality in an Indonesian domain
• prepare its students with science and technology in term of life skills.

The class setting

All learning and teaching process will use PBL (Problem-Based Learning) and the approach of Ubiquitous Learning, and ICT is integral. The class consists of a maximum of 36 students and will be directed to the science class. Applicants for the class are required to have skills such as a mastery of English, the ability to operate MS office, familiarity with internet and the ability to perform art. Beside that, applicants must own a laptop to be brought to school, an internet connection at home, and be willing to carry out an international project. They must also be able to pay for their ticket and accommodation if he/she have go abroad by invitation. For further information about this class, please visit www.smamuhiyogya.org.

The ‘Doors to Diplomacy’ challenge

The US Department of State sponsors the ‘Doors to Diplomacy’ educational challenge, to encourage middle and high school students around the world to produce web projects that teach others about the importance of international affairs and diplomacy. There are four components to the ‘Doors to Diplomacy’ challenge.

The collaborative web project. ‘Doors to Diplomacy’ is a collaborative project, where small teams are formed consisting of two to four student members and up to two adult ‘coaches’. Research can be conducted both online and offline, and the findings are then assembled to produce an educational web project. Students are also encouraged to become spokespersons for their projects. For further information about this project, please see www.globalschoolnet.org

The learning process. There are 34 students in ICT-based class at SMA Muhammadiyah 1 Yogyakarta. They have different backgrounds, abilities and skills. Only a few have a ‘good’ standard of English competence, mostly students have found it difficult to communicate in English, spoken or written.

In this part, I will tell you what my students did in the project called ‘Doors to Diplomacy’.

Working in a group. In the beginning, students are directed to make a group. There are five groups, namely:

• training and academy
• finance
• secretary
• public relations
• technique.

Each group consists of six to seven students. They vote for the leader of each group. However, for the class they are lead by a president and vice president.

When the groups have been fixed, the leaders of each group start to find out what to do related to the project and who must be in charge of doing it. As we will see from the report of the project below, students take responsibility based on their interests and talent. Those who like to design websites, then they take web design as their job. Those who like writing search the resources from the internet and rewrite their ideas, based on the resource they got, and so on.

Process

The process of doing the project is conducted in the English lesson or in other subjects based on the appointment among students and teachers. Because there are five groups, so we decided to take five topics from the eight available topics provided by Global School Net. The school gives the assignment to certain teachers, to guide them. There are civics teachers, who must guide the training and academy group, because this group takes leadership in Islam. Biology teacher guides a group that takes the topic, ‘Health and Environment’ with sub-topic, ‘Avian influenza’. Physics teacher must guide a group that takes ‘Topic Science and Technology’ with the sub-topic, ‘Astronomy’. The economics teacher must guide a group who takes the topic ‘Art and Culture’. A sociology teacher must guide a group that takes the topic, ‘Social Issues’, with sub-topic ‘Human Right’. My jobs as an English teacher is to keep monitoring, day by day, what improvement they make, how the project goes on in the right track, to evaluate the English they use and, of course, to keep communicating with the leader in USA, relating to registration and guidance. I also must guide teachers because this project is also new for them. It needs a process to change from a teacher into a facilitator. The process of guidance does not only apply in the class but also outside the class, even in teacher’s house.
In the first week, all the jobs were delivered to the members, and they started to do it. When I took the report from them, they actively made argumentations, mostly in Indonesian, a little part in English, and when they noted the topic, they used English. They used English more when they wrote the project narrative they needed to report. It is a kind of global design; what they will do to the project they choose. It must be written in English. This challenged them and made them work hard to produce good English.

In the second week, they showed the design of the web. Some of groups have also been ready with the raw content. In this case, they had no idea how to design a web. They were involved in this project for the first time, and they even did not know what software they must use. It is surprising that eventually they knew it by developing their curiosity, because there was a challenge in front of them. It is not a big deal that their web had a very ‘bad’ appearance.

In the third week, they showed the web and the content to teachers. The appearance of the web was better than before. Teachers expressed their review, what to improve, and what to delete, and what was contradictory with the rule. The students made any necessary changes to the web.
In the fourth week, we came to the final report. They showed the last product they must upload to the internet, but teachers still had a chance to give any suggestions for improvement. Students did not have to work hard any more, and just did final touch for finishing.

In the fifth week, it was the process of registration and uploading to the school domain/web. We registered the membership to Global School Net after we had uploaded all the content of web into the school web. These parts 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 of the project are are available for viewing.

The evaluation

As PBL is team work, the students worked hard in a team, hand in hand, to create a web and filled the content. I will not tell you the process of making the web here. What I want to tell you is the result of the test that I gave them long after finishing the project. It proved that the PBL approach enabled them to remember what they had done.
The questions related to the ‘Doors to Diplomacy’ project are:

• What do you think of the project?
• What is your role?
• What did you do?
• What did you learn?
• What did you get so far?
• What is the summary of the project?
• Do you find this project beneficial for you? Why?

Here are their answers:

Mega Iriani Putri (15 years old, a girl)
‘First time when my teacher gives me the announcement to work some project, I feel nervous. I haven’t ever been doing the project, that’s challenged for me. I don’t know about project before. I know if I do the project I will busy but, I must try to, and I must give the best in every project. Because I know if I do the project I will get a lot of experience and that’s will increase my knowledge. About the Doors to Diplomacy, I think this project very interesting for me. This project make me understand about make a web, how to make a good web with an interesting article inside. That’s always being my motivation to do the best.

My job in Doors to Diplomacy Project is the Leader. I think that’s so busy, but I enjoy it. In Doors to Diplomacy, my job is dividing up the work and helps all the team work and the last I must check my team work and make it complete. I also give what my team need, like the suggestion, help to make something etc. because in this project although I am the leader but my team can ask me to do something or anything because we work together. If someone finished the work they must help another members to finished their work.

In doors to diplomacy I do a lot of work. First I divide up the work, when my teacher gives the project we choose theme Science and Technology. I must divide the work like who’s the designer web, who’s make the article, etc. and then I also make an article. After that, I also make the suggestion to my team and my coach for the theme. And we choose ‘Space’ as our theme. To fill the theme, I also make the article too. If I finished the article I also help the designer web. That’s hard for me, because I don’t know about make a web, so I must study first. And the last, I check my team work and make it complete like I repaired the article, I search the Bibliography, etc.

I learn a lot of think in this project. Like I understand if we will do the best we must cooperative with our team. I also learn about friendship, I want my friend honest to me about this project if they have hard work or they confuse to work I will help them. About the web I must study again to make interesting website and make interesting article. That’s for people who read and see our web they know what we know. I really want people can study easy with Science and Technology. About the theme, I know the up to date issues about Science and Technology and the interesting part of the Space.

So far I get a lot of experience and a lot of knowledge. That’s interesting experience to join this project and compete with other team from other country to make the best web. I also understand if other people will read my article I must make interesting article. About knowledge I get knowledge to make a good web and the up to date issues about my theme.

Summary of this project is to make a lot of people learning about our topic. We choose ‘Science and Technology’ topic because we think we can find a lot of knowledge to make a lot of people enjoy to learning. Science and technology have big chance to us to explain many things. We want make something different with science and technology. At first, maybe we confuse to choose the theme at last we decide to choose ‘Space’ as our theme. Space is interesting thing, and we can explain a lot of thing with space. To explain and study about space, of course we need science and technology that’s also our reason. Accept that, we make and looking for interesting topic for discussion of course with the interesting source too. About the article, we need a lot of source like from internet and ‘riset’. We do the ‘riset’, it’s to know what the people suggestion or what people want. After that we use the ‘riset’ as the reference. Beside that we also want to make a fun web that’s to make every people who open, read and learning enjoy our topic. Now, every people want to find how to study with easy and enjoy and this chance we want to grant every people wish with our knowledge.’

Mohammad Tri (15-year-old boy)
‘Firstly I think the project will be hard, and I think that project will bother me, to get a good score in my lesson. But when I do the project, I have fun, I can give my idea and opinion to make a good website. We often to discuss about the web we build, so our relationship can be better. And we can manage time better. But with this project, I feel I just have a little time to study and relax. So I get stressed up, when I must do a lot of project, beside that I must study cause I am a high school student. And I don’t have much time to relax, just playing game etc, so I feel bored. But finally I think this project is good and can improve my skill.

My role in this project is to make a good web, and sometime I make an article for my group web.

I designed a web for my group, with my short of skill about making a web, make this job is very hard for me, I try and try to make a good web. Sometime I must buy a book to know more about making a web, like a good script, a good color, and make a flash button. I also always ask my teacher if I don’t know something. So I get many information, I combine it to make our website. I also make an article for our website, is hard to make an article if there is no real source. So I must read from book and article in other web to make reference. After that I make my own article.
I learn many in this project, I know more about how to make a good web, and make guest like to stay at my website, and many tips & trick about making a good web. My English is also better, before I know about project I learn English more when I play English game, but with this project I can make it to positive activities.

With this project, I can manage time better than before, that project also makes me more independent, I can manage what I must do.

Project can make us to be a better person, my project is going well, we manage to finish it on time. We also make it better than before.

I think this project is very beneficial for me, because with this project I can be a better person, from a bad person that can’t to manage time and only play a game overtime to a good person that can be useful for many people I think.’

Analysis

The assumption of non-constructivist approaches to learning has been that, as long as learners are provided with knowledge, they will be able to use it. It is thus primarily concerned with transferring substance to the learner, and little importance is placed on the role of the learning activity. From a constructivist view, on the other hand, learning is the process of constructing knowledge - not merely obtaining it - in social environments (Brooks & Brooks, 1993). The theory of situated learning consistent with this view asserts that what we come to know and understand is fundamentally a product of the learning situation and the nature of the learning activity. Learning tasks should thus, as far as possible, be embedded in the target context and require the kind of thinking that would be done in real life (Brown et al., 1989; Lave & Wenger, 1991).
One method which supports learning in the target domain is Problem-Based-Learning (PBL). This was created by Barrows (1986) and mostly applied in faculty of medicine as an alternative instructional method to prepare medical students for real world problems by letting them solve medical problems based on real life cases, rather than having them learn mainly through lectures, which taught the sciences out of context. The students worked in teams, and were assigned a medical practitioner who acted as facilitator. This practice was consistent with the assumption that learning occurs not in the ‘heads of individual speakers’ but in the fields of social interaction (Lave & Wenger, 1991), where social partners also determine what and how someone learns (Cole & Engestrom, 1993; Salomon, 1993). It was argued that PBL made learning more applicable by encouraging students to think and act like they would in the real world of medicine. This same method, Duffy and Cunningham (1997) believe, can be applied in other domains.

PBL in language learning

Problems used in PBL are ill-structured (as stimulant topics provided by ‘Doors to Diplomacy’), that is, they do not have absolute answers (Spiro et al., 1991; Perkins, 1991), and they reflect the complexity of real-world problems (not as just short-answer, true-false, and multiple-choice questions). That is what students do in order to finish the projects of Doors to Diplomacy. It is relevant to the learners' situations. It requires learners to explore resources other than the teacher, including reference materials and community members, and to draw on knowledge from various subject areas, such as mathematics, geography, and science. During the inquiry process that learners go through to develop solutions, they need to use language to obtain and communicate information, express opinions and negotiate, as they would in occupational domains. As they document discussions and decisions, consult reference materials, talk to others, or present findings, they learn to listen, speak, read, and write effectively. Even though, I must have a good understanding if I see their ages, which is just 15 or 16, where they sometimes do it in a not serious way. However, they do develop vocabulary, learn rules of grammar and conventions of social language use, and integrate the use of different sign systems. In short, they construct an understanding of language as it is used in real world contexts.
However, the behaviorist trend in language instruction has been to define desired goals independently of the learners and situation, present language in a structured, linear fashion, then attempt to reinforce the content through decontextualised practice. Learners end up knowing about the language but not how to use it (Short, Harste & Burke, 1996). The constructivist view, in contrast, is that language learners should develop their understanding of the conventions of language use by engaging in the kinds of language activity found in real life, and not by learning lists of rules. By letting them participate in ‘Doors to Diplomacy’, where PBL is concerned, can situate language learning in the real world. By posing language learners’ problems, like those found in real life, teachers can bridge the gap between language use in the real world and what Dyson calls the 'fake' world of school.

The language teacher’s role in PBL

In a PBL setting, I need to decentralise my roles as the source of knowledge by consciously refraining from giving only ‘right-wrong’ answers, and helping students observe how other resources can teach them about effective language use. Acting as facilitator and cognitive coach (Barrows, 1992; Duffy & Cunningham, 1997), I need to ask questions such as: ‘Why?’ ‘What do you mean?’ and ‘How do you know that is true?’ (Savery & Duffy, 1994) instead of content-laden questions. The purpose is to challenge the students' reasoning and to help them consider carefully each step they take in their inquiry. By asking such questions, facilitators also model critical thinking, with the purpose of stepping back and letting students begin to ask themselves and their peers those same types of questions. As facilitators, my colleagues and I also give feedback to solve the problems provided and provide the critical resources needed for the inquiry process.

The PBL process

To conduct a ‘Doors to Diplomacy’ projects needs about two months for the content and one month for administrative requirements. It is obvious how the process of doing the project, but globally, we can refer to Savery and Duffy's (1995) model of the PBL process, which proposes some steps that a facilitator could follow:

• the facilitator identifies or designs an ill-structured problem or task relevant to the learner; in this case I just take it from ‘Doors to Diplomacy’ and convince them that they can do it.
• the facilitator presents the problem to the learners
• learners, in their own groups, collaboratively
• generate working ideas or possible solutions
• identify available information related to the problem
• identify learning issues (things they need to find out)
• identify resources to look up or consult
• assign tasks to the various group members gather information
• propose solution(s).

Some of the steps may be revisited. Ideas, learning issues, and solutions may differ among groups, and the class can discuss the viability of each proposed solution. Throughout the process, learners will need to act as scribes or recorders to take notes.

PBL and the English competence of learners

This international project uses a PBL approach. Basically, this approach has aims to develop knowledge (to teach contents and context); skills (for scientific reasoning, critical appreciation, information orientation, self instruction, and lifelong learning. It aims to teach students:

• the ability to solve problems, rather than merely to accumulate knowledge, procedure and rules
• to develop cognitive and flexible strategies that help to analyse situations that are ill-structured and unanticipated, to produce meaningful solutions
• to help students to develop the skill of  problem-solving that is needed to take over/to overcome the lost or complex issues/untouched from traditional instruction
• to help to transfer knowledge from classrooms to real world.

It is very obvious that the project produces the following results:

• Students retain knowledge much longer than they would under traditional instruction
• Developing material comprehension. Learners’ comprehension is deeper because they get facts that were used to solve problems, rather than memorising the material that will be tested in the exam.
• Developing a focus on practical relevant knowledge.
• Applying practical problems that focus on learners guarantee to get knowledge with practical value.
• Developing integrative knowledge. Using real problem in international project forces learners to obtain knowledge and apply it comprehensively so that they develop it holistically.
• Developing thinking (the tendency to discuss, ask, critical reflection).
• Emphasising thinking, rather than knowing, asking rather than answering, and involving in reflective behavior.
• Developing team work, leadership, and social skills.
• Learners truly become lifelong learners, self-learning well beyond the school years.
• Self-directed learning skills and enhanced student motivation.
• Builds on the principles of constructionism, in which knowledge is constructed from interactions with environment and through social negotiation.
• Students transfer concepts to new problems better.
• Principles such as motivation, relevance, practice (repetition), active learning and contextual learning operate significantly in a PBL environment.

References

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