Speaker
Description
As Vietnam and similar contexts transition toward ESL-oriented education, there is a growing emphasis on developing learners' communicative competence through more meaningful and interactive classroom practices (MoET, 2018). Project-Based Learning is often promoted as an effective approach to support this shift. In practice, however, many teachers find PBL time-consuming, difficult to manage, and emotionally demanding, particularly in contexts with limited instructional time, mixed-ability classes, and ongoing exam pressure (Farhan and Sukarno, 2024; Meng et al., 2023; Nguyen and Nguyen, 2019).
This workshop proposes a more sustainable alternative: mini projects, grounded in the Social Action-Oriented Approach to language education (Puren, 2015, 2020). A mini project is action-driven rather than task-driven, engaging learners in a sequence of interconnected actions that lead to meaningful language use within realistic classroom constraints (Ahmet Acar, 2020). Through practical examples from young learner classrooms, participants will explore how mini projects can be integrated into everyday lessons to support communication, participation, and language development without requiring extensive planning or resources.
The session also addresses common sources of teacher workload and burnout in implementing PBL and offers practical strategies to maintain manageable classroom procedures, clear language objectives, and effective formative assessment. By the end of the workshop, participants will gain a clear and adaptable framework for designing mini projects that align with the demands of transitioning ESL classrooms while remaining sustainable for everyday teaching practice.
