Innovation in Language Learning

In this paper, we explore the use of Project-Based Learning (Becket et al. 2019) as a pedagogical tool to train our students in the use of technology in the ESL classroom. As a first-of-its-kind course, the Department of English Education at the University of Education, Winneba’s Technology for Language Teaching and Learning is a pioneering course in the Ghanaian higher education sector designed to equip new and experienced teachers with requisite 21st Century skills needed in the language classroom (Lewin and McNicol 2015). The course is designed and taught to students in the department’s MA, MPHIL, and PhD programs. For the assessments designed to follow the Project-Based Learning framework in our course, our students were assigned tasks in groups and progressively as individuals to undertake student-produced videos which scholars like Gareis (2000) call “the perfect vehicle for integrating skills practice, authentic communication, and process-oriented group activities at a level of student involvement that is difficult to sustain through other media.” We then tracked the development of student competencies in lesson delivery and crucially the competencies students accrued in the use of key technologies in the delivery of ESL lessons. The findings track with similar studies such as Lee (2014) who found that students with low competencies generally tend to do worse in CALL-infused project-based learning modules. However, we also found that students who were new to the technologies they learned in the course tended to make sustained use of their newfound skills in their ongoing pedagogies.