the role of project worm

Abstract

The skills needed for the new generation make them use their technical potentials to learn how and where to search for knowledge. Current trends in teaching/ learning have advocated the use of project work (PW) as a pedagogical activity to foster 21st century students’ motivation. Project-based learning (PBL) is an instructional approach designed to meet the needs of today’s students, give students the opportunity to develop knowledge and skills through engaging projects set around challenges and problems they may face in the real world in an autonomous manner. It is also one of the student-centered approaches that have been highly recommended in the new Algerian educational reforms. Thus, the present study delves into PW and intrinsic motivation. It investigates the attitudes of Algerian students and teachers towards the use of PBL, and its role in enhancing the intrinsic motivation level of 4th year middle school (MS) students at Medjili Brothers’ MS in BBA (with some4th year MS teachers of English ) belonging to the Third District. It seeks to determine the roles teachers can perform within PBL and whether students and teachers prefer using PBL in their classrooms over teacher-centered approaches to learning. In this research, teachers’ and students’ questionnaires were used as tools to collect data and to test the hypotheses that that both teachers and students may show positive perceptions towards the use of PBL to foster the students’ intrinsic motivation. The findings revealed that 4th year MS students and teachers hold favorable attitudes on behalf of this new method (as far as the Algerian context is concerned) to boost the learning motivation, collaboration and critical thinking skills. At last, since PW is a fundamen tal aspect of learning/ teaching, we recommend that it should be undertaken through motivation, interest and encouragement to unblock the various gateways of learners’ motivation, cooperation and creative thinking.