Episode 12: Why Settle for Student Participation When You Can Have Student Engagement? feat. Mari Nakamura

Episode 12: Why Settle for Participation When You Can Have Real Engagement? 

Episode Summary Educator and entrepreneur, Mari Nakamura, joins Darren to share her personal journey in English language teaching. Through engaging stories from her career, Mari explores the educational and social benefits of Project-Based Learning and how it creates meaningful student engagement that goes well beyond simple participation. Darren discusses the natural overlap with Performance in Education (PIE) approaches and how the two methodologies can benefit each other.

Guest Mari Nakamura MA holds a bachelor’s degree in Sociology from Kwansei Gakuin University, a Master of Science in Teaching English to Young Learners from Aston University (UK), and a Certificate in Teaching English as a Foreign Language.

A two-time winner of the Best of JALT Award, Mari is the founder and owner of MELEP (Mari English Language Education Port). She is a dedicated educator, teacher trainer, and passionate music lover.

Key Topics

• Mari’s personal journey and experiences in English language teaching
• Real classroom stories that illustrate the power of Project-Based Learning
• Educational and social benefits of Project-Based Learning
• Creating deep student engagement beyond simple participation
• Natural overlaps between Project-Based Learning and Performance in Education (PIE) approaches

Resources & Links

 MELEP(Mari's English Language Education Port) Website 

MELEP 麻里英語教育ポート - 未来につながる英語教育 | 神戸の子ども英語指導者コミュニティ＆教育コンサルティング

MELEP(Mari's English Language Education Port) Instagram
Instagram

iEARN

"iEARN is a non-profit organization made up of over 30,000 schools and youth organizations in more than 140 countries"

https://www.iearn.org/

Reviewed Papers
Empowering Teenage English Language Learners Through Creative Projects (JALT 2019 Post-Conference Publication)
jalt2019-pcp-009_0.pdf

Junior High School Students' Engagement in Online Global PBL (JALT 2023 Pan-SIGG Journal pp.109-116)
2023_PanSIG_Journal.pdf

Thanks for listening! If you enjoyed this episode, please like and leave a review. To learn more about the Performance in Education SIG, check out our website. 

https://jaltpiesig.org/

Have questions or want to get involved? Reach out to us at:

pie.sig.podcast@gmail.com.

To access other high-quality JALT podcasts, go to JALT CALL (Computer Assisted Language Learning) Podcasts on Soundcloud!

https://soundcloud.com/jalt-call

For tips on how to cite these episodes using APA 7th edition, use the link below:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1uLVARUdviigboSQXkJXfgNm0zNkMsal6brBvwpmTKWM/edit?usp=sharing

Intro & Outro song: Unlock Me (Royalty free)

Music by Kontraa Studio | UKA Music Publishing LLC

Transcript

Darren 0:01

Do you want to make your lessons more engaging and meaningful? Then join me on the PIE SIG P odcast with Darren as we explore performance in education with passionate teachers who bring it to life in their classrooms.

Darren 0:14

When I attended Mari Nakamuda's presentation titled Beyond Participation: Prioritizing Student Engagement in Young Learners' Classrooms, I was impressed by the originality and energy of the student projects that she shared. I also immediately saw a strong compatibility with PIE, or Performance In Education. On the surface, PBL or project-based learning emphasizes process, while PIE often emphasizes the product through an event such as a speech, presentation, or performance. But when you look closely, both approaches revolve around the same principle. Public sharing gives purpose to the process, and that purpose fuels motivation. Today, we are joined by Mari Nakamura, educator, entrepreneur, two-time Best of JALT award winner, and owner of Mari's English Language Education Port. So Nakamura Sensei, welcome to the podcast.

Mari 1:17

Thank you very much for your invitation.

Darren 1:19

I'd like to begin with your early years. Where did you grow up?

Mari 1:23

I grew up in Kobe. Yeah, and I'd been here for about 25 years. Then I moved to Hokuriku area with my husband.

Darren 1:36

I went to Kobe a few years ago and I liked it immediately. Because as soon as I got to the station, there were the mountains behind me, and then there was the ocean in front, and I thought this is great.

Mari 1:46

Yeah, I like it here.

Darren 1:48

When you were growing up, what were you like as a student?

Mari 1:51

In general, I was a quite a hard-working student, and I was I really liked my school, and I really liked studying at school and doing my homework. So it was not like I English was my favorite subject. I used to I used to like something like sociology more. So at university I majored in sociology.

Darren 2:15

Are there any teachers that you have any fond memories of?

Mari 2:18

In English?

Darren 2:19

Oh, it doesn't matter.

Mari 2:21

Yes, I had a really creative piano teacher and she made a big impact in you know on my life, I think. You know, as most teachers do, most piano teachers do. She has a Kreska music background, but she also taught me how to play jazz and Latin. Yeah, so she was quite unique in her field. Most of the Kreska music teachers, you know, stick to Kreska music, but she made a special arrangement for children to play jazz and Latin.

Darren 2:57

And how how old were you at that time?

Mari 3:00

I was like uh from eight to twelve years old. I I think I was really lucky. I really enjoyed doing that.

Darren 3:09

Do you still play?

Mari 3:11

Uh just a little, I would say.

Darren 3:15

What was her teaching style? Do you remember?

Mari 3:17

Her teaching style, you know, she she really cared about the basics. So I had to practice a lot of the basic stuff. And on top of that, she told me how to play with emotions and to be creative and to enjoy, you know, playing with my friends, like um, as a band format, which was really rare in Showa period. Yeah, that was really rare.

Darren 3:44

You mentioned after high school you went to university and studied sociology. What attracted you to that subject?

Mari 3:50

I I think I was really interested in how the society works as a whole. For example, you know, I was also interested in psychology, but I was aware that people live in a society, so how our minds work are influenced by how the society works. So that is why, you know, I wanted to say something a little bigger than each person's, you know, psychological work.

Darren 4:16

Okay. So when you were at university, did you feel like I want to be part of this world of teaching and education?

Mari 4:24

Yes, I was uh working, I was teaching children part-time as a tutor, not only English, but I I remember I taught, Japanese, and math to elementary school students. I really enjoyed teaching. So I noticed that uh, okay, maybe teaching might be my profession. That's what I thought.

Darren 4:46

And you're very interested in uh project-based learning.

Mari 4:48

Yeah.

Darren 4:49

And were you interested right from the beginning, or did that come a bit later?

Mari 4:52

No, no, that that came in later. Yeah. Because I learned English in a very traditional way. So I had to, you know, start by mimicking how I was taught at school. And I gradually shifted my teaching after that.

Darren 5:09

I see. So you've taught students of all ages?

Mari 5:12

When I started my own school in Niigata, in a small town in Niigata, I taught children and university students and adults at my own school.

Darren 5:25

What are the biggest differences between teaching adults and children?

Mari 5:30

At first, you know, teaching adults was much easier, and teaching children was so challenging for me. I think the biggest difference is that, you know, when we become a teacher, we are already adults. So we have forgotten how we learned when we were elementary school case or a kindergarten level student. So I had to learn how their mind works and how they become engaged emotionally and socially. So that is the biggest difference. So they're they are more intuitive and they are more creative, they are more adventurous, and they have much shorter attention span.

Darren 6:11

For people who are not so familiar with project-based learning, can you explain what it is in a very simple way?

Mari 6:17

In project-based learning, students have the project in the long term, usually like a three month or six months, and they the teacher design the project, but during the project, students work through some sub-goals and go through the project. The end project product pretty much depends on what you know students have learned during the process. That's a project-based learning.

Darren 6:45

Okay. And there's a sharing component as well.

Mari 6:48

Yeah, students share their work and during the project, they share their thoughts and they engage in lots of discussions. They create something. Usually at my school, they create something together and share what they have created with the other students.

Darren 7:07

Okay. So when I first met you, it was uh through JOLT at the Japan Association of Language Teaching. And how did you first become connected with JOLT?

Mari 7:16

It was a long time ago. Around 2005, I was academic consultant for Longman. Now that the company is called Pearson Education. So I worked for Longman as an academic consultant. So I started presenting for them, and I started to present present a jolt conference for them with them. Oh, I see. So I really didn't know anything about jolt, to be honest. Yeah.

Darren 7:48

Did it have any influence on your teaching, or was it more kind of one-way?

Mari 7:52

The influence on me was enormous. You know, before that, I didn't have a master's degree. So my major was sociology, and I learned how to teach through my practice, but I didn't know much of the theory. But when I started to, you know, participate in participate in JET conference, I was exposed to so many different styles of teaching and so many different theories in language teaching. And that was a whole new world for me. So that was really inspiring and stimulating. So after participating in JELT conference, I noticed that I really there is so much more to learn from me. So I decided to take on the master's course.

Darren 8:40

So this project-based approach, did that come up in the Jolt context or in your master's program?

Mari 8:45

Gradually, after you know, completing the master's degree, I kept on learning at JOLT, and I was exposed to those new ideas, and I started to think of using that approach in my teaching context. But that was not easy because my students are much younger, and the classes meet only once a week for one hour. That was a big challenge. So I had to make a lot of changes to project-based learning.

Darren 9:15

So JOLD hands out a kind of what we used to call the best of JOLD award.

Mari 9:19

Yes.

Darren 9:20

Are you familiar with that?

Mari 9:21

Yes, I was actually awarded the best of Jolt Awards twice.

Darren 9:26

Wow.

Mari 9:26

The first one was about a picture book-based, picture book-based curriculum design. That was the first time. I think that was like a 2015. And the second one was my presentation about yeah, that that was also about picture-based, picture book-based approach, but it was something a little more like a project-based learning. Yeah, at the end of the curriculum students share their own unique picture book, that kind of thing.

Darren 9:57

Also they're actually creating. This would be similar to like some teachers using manga, students drawing manga.

Mari 10:13

Yeah, yes. Something like manga, but uh just one picture, one page. And at the end, we connected each page into one book. All the pages into one book.

Darren 10:27

And there was a fluent story, or there were like separate stories in this book?

Mari 10:32

Oh, fluent story, one story.

Darren 10:34

That's interesting.

Mari 10:34

Yeah. Yeah, that was that was very good.

Darren 10:37

So last year you were in Sendai and you gave a couple of presentations. One was at Miyagi Gakwan University and one was for Jolt Sendai. And in the Jolt Sendai presentation that I attended, you were talking about the difference between participation and engagement. Right. So can you tell us for people who don't know the difference? What is the difference?

Mari 10:57

Okay, participation is, you know, it depends on how you define the word, but to me, participation feels like when a teacher sees the student, the students see look to be working on something differently. And for example, copying the sentences or making sentences or practicing the speech. But engagement is much deeper. When students are engaged, I think when it comes to engagement, I think of the four elements. One is cognitive engagement, the other is social engagement, and emotional engagement and behavioral engagement. So behavioral engagement is like a participation.

Darren 11:42

So you're getting only one element.

Mari 11:44

Yeah, one of the one of the elements in engagement. The cognitive engagement is how deeply the students are thinking, and emotional engagement is how emotionally they are involved in learning, and social engagement is how they interact with their peers and stimulate each other with each other.

Darren 12:05

That sounds very much like pie or performance in education. We're we're focusing on all those four things as well. Yeah, because you you might be creating a script together. You have to think about the meaning.

Mari 12:16

Meaning is meaning is so important.

Darren 12:18

Very important. And then you're you have to think about how the others reacting, because you have to respond to how they're acting to you. For example, if it's a play or a skit, right, and then you're presenting it in front of other people. So you've got all those forms of, I guess, four forms of participation, engagement. Right. Okay, well, that that's interesting. So, in in your experience, has your technique of project-based learning ever resulted in a student really transforming, like becoming like they show a side of themselves that you never saw before and you were kind of surprised.

Mari 12:50

Oh, yeah, that happens all the time. And that is really stimulating to me to see how they show their true colors through project-based learning. Yes. For example, there is this very simple activity. I'm not sure whether I can call it a project or not, because that is pretty much designed by the teacher, which is me. This project is called Rainbow Project. In this project, students draw black and white line illustration and exchange exchange the black and white illustration with their partner, usually the students in a foreign country. Then they receive this the students also receive the illustration drawn with a black markers. They also exchange the letters. So they attach the letters with the illustration. And they receive the letter and see the illustration, and they think of the friend in overseas, and friend overseas, and think of the friend, imagine the friend, and color in the pictures, and send the picture and the letter back to the international peers. It's really interesting to see how what kind of picture the students draw.

Darren 14:11

And this is a physical letter.

Mari 14:14

Physical letters, yes. That's right. Physical letters and physical illustrations.

Darren 14:22

So if you send me an email, that's one thing. But if you send me a letter, that's something that you held in your hand. The ink came from your pen.

Mari 14:30

Yes.

Darren 14:30

It got onto the page by you moving your hand. There's a kind of deeper connection there, right?

Mari 14:35

Right. So the physicality of language and communication, I really value.

Darren 14:41

Yeah, this is also something in Pi, right? Because when you if you if one aspect of Pi is doesn't have to be stage performance, but there's always some kind of a performance going on, right?

Mari 14:51

Yeah.

Darren 14:52

And there's a physicality there. But I think it's more of physical, physical physicality. The people, the students are using their bodies. Whereas in in the project-based learning, they're using their bodies, but it results in an artifact. Right. Whereas we're using our bodies to create some kind of event.

Mari 15:09

Yeah.

Darren 15:10

In your presentation, you talked about the students were doing like moderating Zoom discussions, posting projects internationally, presenting their findings. So what how important is I asked you this a bit before, but maybe we can expand on it. How important is that sharing component? Like if you were to take that away, what what would happen to the project-based approach without that?

Mari 15:33

Yeah, I think if I do everything for them, it will feel like a duty for them. They have to do something. So they will try to look good without thinking deeply. You know, so they might not find the value in what they do, but they will take it like a routine. And they think, okay, teacher asked me to do this, so I will do the research, but I will use AI and I will design something by taking this photograph from here and taking this illustration from there. Okay, voila, that looks good, right, teacher? That kind of approach they might have. But when I ask them to discuss with their peers and design the project by themselves, they will feel the responsibility. So I kind of release the responsibility to them gradually, since they are very young. And by the time when they become junior high and senior high, they are ready to take on the whole task by themselves. Then they will feel fully motivated and fully responsible, and they do their best and they show their two cutters, I think.

Darren 16:46

Right. Because I think in the in the performance and education approach, there's something similar there, that you have that performance at the end. And some people think that that's that's all there is. It's not. I think it's that's the that's the proof of that the process has worked. Right? The same as the artifact in in yours. And I think it one one big thing about that is if they know they have to share it, that creates more motivation within the process part.

Mari 17:16

Right, of course, yes. And it is so important for them to have the authentic audience. Yeah, that has been quite a challenge for me because I, as I said, I teach children only once a week in a small classroom with only six students. So, you know, in the early years of my teaching, I asked my students to practice speech, but they didn't have the audience. They performed because they knew that I was going to check the performance as a teacher to give them some feedback and they will try to, you know, sometimes correct some mistakes or to make changes to please the teacher. So they didn't have the you know, authentic audience. But once I started to do the project-based learning and teaching, they had a real audience. For example, sometimes they are the other students in the same class or the students in foreign countries in different cultures. So their motivational level has changed a lot since then.

Darren 18:25

I I think it took me a long time to realize the importance of audience. So I've been teaching writing for a long time, and I sometimes I forget to tell the students who is your audience. And they sometimes seem like they're writing for themselves or just me, or some, I don't know who they think they're writing for, maybe someone exactly like them. But yeah, recently I've been getting to getting them to do a reader's theater. So now they have to share what they've written with three or four other people because you stand on the stage as three or four or five people. So you have to understand what the other person has written, and you're interacting with that other person's ideas, and you're actually sharing them with other people, and that changes the writing process.

Mari 19:05

Right.

Darren 19:05

So I think this all comes back to the same thing. This idea of performance at the end shapes the process. Right. Okay.

Mari 19:12

Very fantastic idea. I've never tried read as theater at my university classes. So I think you're gonna try.

Darren 19:20

I I had some writing students who are some of them were shy and some of them were not interested in the class at all. And I was, I had this text and I said, you know, you have to read it with emotion, and you don't have to worry about eye contact. And they're like, Oh, that's good. But I said that but, but, but you have to have emotion. So I would read it with emotion, over the top emotion, just to try to get their level up a little bit. And one of the shyest girls who seemed to be not interested at all was the best one. Already, and I said, That was amazing. Like, what happened to you? What do you think what happened to her? I think sometimes they need permission to be alive and not just not be the nail that sticks out.

Mari 20:04

Yeah, she needed a stage, yeah.

Darren 20:06

Need a stage and permission.

Mari 20:08

Permission, yes.

Darren 20:09

Yeah, because if the teacher's telling you to do it, then well, it was not me, it's the teacher told me to do it. Ah, I see. Yeah, I think that's part of it. And they I think they enjoy it because some of them are hams, you know, they like to get in front of other people and show off. And you don't sometimes you don't know that until you you try it.

Mari 20:28

Yeah, I'm now writing a syllabus for you know university classes. Oh. So maybe I should include that in there.

Darren 20:35

Excellent. So I'm thinking about your projects, and they seem a bit maybe complicated for people who haven't tried them. I'm guessing there are a lot of steps. And the first thing I was thinking about was the audience, international audience. You're gonna have to arrange that at the very beginning, right?

Mari 20:54

Before the class.

Darren 20:55

How do you how do you do that? Like, do you have like a network of people that you can contact or yeah?

Mari 21:02

As I've been doing this for a long time. I, you know, I have done that work of teachers whom I can contact. And when I started out, I signed up for iEarn. Have you ever heard of the organization that is an NPO? That is an NPO based in the United States and Spain, I think, that is called iEarn, International Resource and Education Network. So I am a member of the organization, and I can find some teachers in different countries who want to engage in the same kind of uh project-based learning. So anybody join this? Yes, anybody can join join it. Yes, of course. You're interested. So you don't have to be an university teacher, you don't have to work for a public school. Anyone can sign up for it.

Darren 21:55

I see.

Mari 21:56

Yeah.

Darren 21:56

Okay, maybe I'll put that in the description of the podcast. Okay, so so you've got let's say you've set up your your international link, and now you've got to think about the type of project that you want.

Mari 22:11

Yes, and discuss with a partner teacher.

Darren 22:14

Right.

Mari 22:15

Yeah, we we've got to we've got to check, you know, make sure everything works right. So for example, how long the project is going to be and what the topic is, and uh what is the goal is, and also the grade level of the students. So there are so many things that we have to discuss. So we spend about one month for discussion before starting. Yeah, and I usually do that through email.

Darren 22:46

So it seems to me, based on what you said so far, is that it has a lot of what I call front-end work. So right at the very beginning, you're doing probably, I would guess, 80% of your work. And then throughout throughout the year, that the rest of the 20% is monitoring and giving help.

Mari 23:02

Right. Yeah, so planning is so important.

Darren 23:07

So at that point, the it kind of flips, right? The students are doing most of the work. Exactly. That's true.

Mari 23:13

That is true. So if we carefully plan, you know, the rest of the part gets easier and smoother and a lot more stimulating for the students. Yeah.

Darren 23:24

Can can you tell us about one project that you're quite proud of?

Mari 23:28

Okay. About I think it it was five years ago, I did a big project with a Moldovan teacher.

Darren 23:36

Oh, that's the one you spoke about in Sendai.

Mari 23:39

Ah, yes, yes, that that's the one. And I did research about the engagement uh using the project. The project is for about five months. And in this, yeah, during the project, students on both ends did some research about four topics. Well, more topics, I think. And most popular topic was a school. And for example, my students, my students did a research about like a like a school education system in Japan, and more than students did a research about their country's education system. They exchanged some findings using Padlet. Padlet is an online Breoton board. They exchanged some information on the Brute and Board, and so there was an a lot of interaction on the Brute and Board. And then after three months, they did they had a you know real-time exchange time meeting using Zoom engaging in discussion too. Yeah, and my of course my students and those students did a presentation about school.

Darren 24:48

How did it improve their their English?

Mari 24:52

What I noticed is more about their uh attitude towards communication. They became there more open and they became more adventurous in having conversation with uh foreign uh students. They become more engaged in conversation, they showed a lot more uh willingness to communicate, and they worked really hard to discuss with their peers in the same class to make it successful.

Darren 25:29

The responsibility.

Mari 25:30

Yeah, responsibility, yes, that's true.

Darren 25:32

Social skills.

Mari 25:33

Yeah, social skills, yes. So they knew that they had to really discuss with their peers to make it successful. They knew that because I didn't help during the discussion time.

Darren 25:47

This goes all the way back to to John Dewey, doesn't it?

Mari 25:50

Learn by doing and learning by doing, yes. Learning from peers and yeah.

Darren 25:56

Right. So could you tell us a bit about your professional career now?

Mari 26:00

No, right now, okay. I'm now teaching high school students and university students, and also I'm doing professional development projects with some teachers.

Darren 26:13

Okay.

Mari 26:14

Yes, I have teachers' community called MELEP.

Darren 26:17

MELEP.

Mari 26:18

MELEP, yes, Maurice English Education English Language Education Port. Yes, there are over 300 teachers in the community. So I do teacher training seminars and I do consulting work, and I also do small group teachers' lessons.

Darren 26:39

Can I ask why you transitioned from your own school to the Melab?

Mari 26:43

Oh, okay. I was really, you know, the timing was right, I think. It was around 2020. You know, when COVID was 2020 during the COVID COVID era. COVID era. So all the teachers were having a hard time. Especially, you know, children's teachers were having a hard time switching from face-to-face classes to online classes. And and around that time I was already using Padlet. Yeah. That is an online tool. And I thought maybe some teachers might be interested in the use of Padlet in the language classroom because there is an online tool, so that could be helpful for some teachers who are teaching children through Zoom to supplement their classes. So I started to do some training about Padlet, and there was so much interest in teachers. So many, many teachers participating in my teacher training seminar that I planned with Eric Kane. Do you know Eric Kane?

Darren 27:54

I don't.

Mari 27:55

Okay, he's also active in JOLT, and we are good friends, so we did such kind of a teacher training seminars together. And that was the beginning of Medet. So at that time I noticed that maybe there are a lot of things that I can offer to teachers by doing online seminars to them. So the teachers wanted to wanted to, you know, get connected online during the pandemic.

Darren 28:26

Yes.

Mari 28:26

Yeah, so I decided to make a community for teachers. Yeah. So that is, I consider that to be my main job now.

Darren 28:35

I see. So humans sharing with other humans.

Mari 28:38

Yes.

Darren 28:40

So I guess we see this in project-based learning, we see this in Pi. We see it in even in the podcast.

Mari 28:46

Yes.

Darren 28:47

The reason I brought up the humans thing, I chose this word specifically because in Japan you say Ningen, but in in English, we don't usually use that, right? We say people. People. But I use the word human because we're in an AI, the world is becoming AI-based now, I think. That's kind of very quickly going in that direction. And I often ask my guests on the podcast, what do we have to offer as human teachers? So when I think about Pi, or if I think about project-based learning, I think, in my opinion, we're offering something that AI cannot. And that's the the human sharing, the human experience, the interaction. What else do you think that we can offer as teachers that AI cannot offer?

Mari 29:31

Yeah, I of course uh interaction, human interaction or human connection comes to the top. That's that's something that AI cannot do. And I think the other elements which is really important for the teachers to keep in mind is to be flexible for individual students. So we've got to be, we've got to observe our students very carefully, pick up some signs that students send us and to respond to it individually. I think that is something that we are really good at that AI cannot do yet.

Darren 30:06

Right.

Mari 30:07

Yeah.

Darren 30:08

And being physically present together in the same place, I think is important.

Mari 30:11

Yes, physically present together, yes.

Darren 30:14

Yeah, and and and again, coming back to the idea of physicality. You know, if it's if you're doing a stage play, you have the props. Right. And if you're doing an artifact of some type like you do, you have paper or some type of uh artwork or something like that. And maybe AI can mimic that, and maybe some people would actually prefer to fall in love with AI and not have to talk to anybody else. But I think for most people, I think they crave human interaction, acceptance, and physicality. You know, you still see young people are going out and buying records, you know, something that we got rid of when I was a teenager.

Mari 30:53

It's very popular now. It's just a nice surprise to me.

Darren 30:57

It's interesting.

Mari 30:58

I mean, I I can't be bothered with it because I'm digital with that now, but but even younger generation, younger generation prefer funnels sometimes. They enjoy touching the record, yeah, and feeding the weights of it.

Darren 31:14

Yeah, that physicality, yeah.

Mari 31:16

Yeah.

Darren 31:17

All right. So just to wrap up, can you give teachers some advice if they want to try some project-based learning that's that they can maybe do in the in the next year that that's not going to take up three months of their time, but you know, something simple that they can do?

Mari 31:32

Yeah, there are a couple of things that they can do. You know, keep it simple at first. For example, the project can be as short as just two lessons. Oh.

Darren 31:43

Oh, please tell us more.

Mari 31:45

For example, you can just you can simply ask your students to take some interesting picture, interesting photograph around you. Or, for example, in your house, find something funny in your house and take a picture and share, share the picture with your friends. Right. They take a picture at home and share the picture, for example, online or in the class, they talk about those funny objects from the from the home.

Darren 32:16

Okay.

Mari 32:17

Yes, each, you know, each student share the special objects, and they talk about those objects. And of course, that kind of a discussion leads to different ideas. For example, what about sharing something at school? What about sharing something in a community? So then you can make the project bigger and bigger. So they can start from something really small and expand on it. So that may be something that you might want to do.

Darren 32:48

Right. So I'm thinking about presentations and performances in English as well, because you can start off with just a role play. Then the roleplay can become a skit in front of the class, and then that can become in front of the whole school or be done in public and so on. So just up scaling it up.

Mari 33:04

Yeah, so small and see what happens in your classroom. Especially children will tell you what to do next because they have lots of ideas, and they they are they don't hesitate to share their ideas. Yeah, unlike adults.

Darren 33:19

That's right, that's right. So before we wrap up, is there anything else that you wanted to mention or add?

Mari 33:24

I want you know, all the teachers of young learners to be open about their ideas, to share their teaching ideas using you know their own community or on social media, or by participating in some conferences or seminars, share your ideas and see where the dialogue is going to take you.

Darren 33:48

Right. So maybe JALT or your organization, for example.

Mari 33:52

Yes. To be connected.

Darren 33:56

All right, thank you very much for joining us. It's been a great opportunity to find out what you know project-based learning can do and how it relates to performance and education, what the what the overlaps are and where the differences are. And I think I think both can benefit from each other. You know, if more more performance and education type approaches within the project-based learning might help to create a better, you know, sharing experience and maybe more of a content for us would help us, you know, to have more content in something that we're doing that's presentation based. Right. So it's been great. Well, thank you very much for talking to us.

Mari 34:30

Thank you. I had a good time.

Darren 34:32

Okay, take care.

Mari 34:33

Take care.

Darren 34:34

Bye bye. Bye. Thank you for listening. Until next time, stay focused and keep performing.