High school students’ perceptions towards project - based learning

Abstract

In an attempt to enhance the English teaching and learning quality in Vietnam, the Ministry of Education and Training recently issued a pilot English textbook series to substitute for the conventional books that have been officially used in the education system since the 2000s. In these new textbooks, a project section is added into each unit, which requires students to work in groups to achieve a project fulfillment. These project activities are designed to help students make use of the attainment of language and skills from the lectures and promote their learning motivation. Meanwhile, high school teachers seem to have no interest in doing projects and they tend to leave them out or just carry out some of the projects for the reason that project activities are timeconsuming and challenging to students. In the current study, 87 eleventh graders at Nguyen Viet Dung High School experiencing project activities in Pilot English textbook – Grade 11 were selected. Students’ perceptions towards the benefits and challenges in project-based learning were explored using a 36-item questionnaire. From the results, the researcher suggested some useful implications for teaching and learning.