Practice-Oriented Paper

Fieldwork Projects to Learn Content
EnglishWendy M. Gough
Bunkyo Gakuin University
Kazumi Kato
Tokai University, School of Marine Science and Technology,
Shimizu campus
Since 2017, an elective English communication class that focuses on fieldwork projects has
been developed and team-taught by the authors. Students interested in doing fieldwork
projects to learn content English are encouraged to enroll in the course. This paper explainsa fieldwork project completed in the spring 2018 semester and student reactions to learning
content English through project-based tasks. In the project, student groups chose areas of
the university’s marine science museum and researched about its features and the research
conducted there. Then they learned English expressions and vocabulary related to themarine science museum and made an English floor guide of the site. The project takes
English learning outside of the classroom and teaches content language because it focuses
on fieldwork to help the students learn English expressions that are directly related to theirmajors. Student volunteers at the museum will also be able to use the floor map to introduce
the marine science museum or their studies to international visitors. The project is also an
example of non-content teachers using project-based learning to teach content languagethat has the potential to help students in their future study or career endeavors.

In recent years, the Japanese government has been pushing for reform in English
education to promote the acquisition of communicative competence in an effort
to develop more globally minded citizens (Ministry of Education, 2014). As aresult, there is a need to reflect on current teaching practices and find innovative
methods of instruction that motivate learners and that meet the twenty-first128

Fieldwork Projects to Learn Content English, OCJSI 1, pages 128-142

century needs of the global English-speaking community. Hashimoto (2013)
believed connecting language learning with practical tasks and giving students
a voice in the learning process should become an integral part of JapaneseEnglish language curriculum if we are to solve problems with the current English
education system. This paper reports on one project completed in a projectbased content English class that was designed and implemented at a Japanesemarine science and technology university. The project described in this paper
is an English language floor guide of the university’s marine science museumthat was completed in the spring 2018 semester. The project was designed tomotivate students by combining knowledge they have learned in content courses
with language learning as they gained skills to explain marine science content
in English. The marine science museum floor guide will be useful for students
who volunteer at the museum as part of their studies. Students in the university’s
English club who volunteer to provide English assistance for international luxury
liner passengers disembarking at the local port will also be able to use the floor
guide when they conduct tours to the marine science museum.
This project-based class aligned with Hashimoto’s (2013) proposal forconnecting language learning with practical tasks as well as with Prensky’s(2010) notion that twenty-first century learners prefer autonomous, active
learning environments in which they use technology, take part in collaborative
learning, and learn from classmates’ experiences. The class gave students anopportunity to engage in autonomous learning, use technology, and do projectbased activities that follow their passions. This helped the students learn skills
needed to succeed in their content courses as well as in society at large (Prensky,2010). Furthermore, the project served as a model for content-based language
learning projects that can be taught by language teachers who are not specialists
in the content students learn in their majors.

Project-based Learning

Project-based learning (PBL) is a type of student-centered course design that
focuses on problem solving, collaboration, and the teacher acting as a facilitator(Ornstein & Hunkins, 2014). PBL emphasizes learner autonomy as students
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engage in authentic, collaborative tasks where they find the informationnecessary to complete the projects, solve problems, and reflect on their learning
process (Westwood, 2008). In designing PBL courses, students and teachers cannegotiate the curriculum so that students feel empowered by having a voice in thecontent and materials. This results in courses that focus on student interests andneeds (Ornstein & Hunkins, 2014). PBL is an effective method of instruction
for English language learning as well as for other subjects. In English language
classes PBL can involve interdisciplinary learning, real and relevant challenges,
and acquiring information mining skills (Ng Chin Leong, 2009). The focus
on sharing ideas with classmates was shown to motivate students, promote
self-esteem and confidence in using English, develop creativity, and create an
enjoyable learning experience for students (Astawa, Artini, & Nitiasih, 2017).
Students engaging in PBL were observed sharing ideas and negotiating to makea consensus, and developing higher level speaking and writing skills as a result of
projects implemented in the classroom. (Astawa, Artini, & Nitiasih, 2017). For
English as a foreign language (EFL) learners, PBL can be used to teach simple
tasks such as ordering in a restaurant, or it can be implemented into contentbased classes.
When developing content-based PBL in EFL courses, students’ priorknowledge of the content is integral to creating successful projects because
the focus can be on building upon current skills rather than on the process ofknowledge acquisition (Ng Chin Leong, 2009). As a result, students are able tomanage their learning process in PBL projects by learning organizational andplanning skills, problem solving, and methods to find information necessary
to complete the assignment. For example, Fujimura (2016) found students
developed and shared their knowledge by classifying what they had learned
and developed a deeper knowledge of the subject by researching about it, thencomparing ideas and data. This helped the students develop their English
language skills as well as they began to apply both their content and linguisticknowledge to the final project. Thus, by engaging in various activities needed
to complete the project, students gained competence in doing group work andlearned to reconstruct their content knowledge in English (Fujimura, 2016). The
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result of these processes is that students retain the information they have learned
longer than when studying in a passive context (Ng Chin Leong, 2009). The
authors of this paper envisioned similar results to the prior research when they
designed the project-based content English communication course described inthis paper.

Project Background

Since 2014, the Active Tokai Local Ambassadors (ATLAS) English Club at Tokai
University’s Shimizu, Shizuoka campus in Japan has been engaging in volunteer
fieldwork using English to support international tourism and events in the local
area. This fieldwork involves interpreting in English or visiting international
luxury liner passengers at the local port, helping at international teachingconferences, interpreting for visiting international soccer teams, and creating
maps, guidebooks, and other materials to provide English language assistancefor international visitors. These fieldwork projects take language learning outsideof the classroom and provide opportunities for authentic English interactionsin Japan. They also motivate students to learn practical English communication
skills (Gough & Kato, 2016). When the authors observed and interviewed the
ATLAS English Club students and other students in their classes at the marine
science university, they learned that many students had a desire to learn English
skills to talk about their majors and other marine science interests. Because theuniversity’s compulsory English courses follow a rigid curriculum that does notallow for introducing content English, the authors decided to develop and teamteach an elective content-English course that addressed their students’ desire tolearn English skills for describing marine science content. They also wanted tocreate projects that can combine the ATLAS English Club projects to support
local English needs with projects that support the university’s English needs.
Therefore, they designed an elective English communication class focusing onfieldwork projects, and students who were interested in participating in the
English fieldwork activities were encouraged to enroll. This paper explains the2018 marine science museum floor map project and student reactions to learning
content English through PBL activities related to the project.
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The 2018 Class ProjectIn 2018, the authors and students chose two projects to undertake in thesemester-long class. The first project, which is described in this paper, was tomake an English floor guide for the university’s marine science museum. Fortythree students participated in the 2018 class. Forty-one students were ethnicallyJapanese, and two were international students from Malaysia and China.
There were two female students enrolled in the course. Because the course wasan elective, it was open to students of all grades, English levels, and majors at
the university. The students were first grade (n = 17), second grade (n = 19),third grade (n = 6), and fourth grade (n = 1). Based on their university English
placement scores when they entered the university, the majority of the students
were considered elementary and intermediate English learners (CEFR A2 andB1). The two international students along with five Japanese students had higher
English levels, ranging between CEFR B2 and C1.
The students began the marine science museum project by looking at
the Japanese floor guide and making groups depending on their majors andinterest in the marine science museum sections. They chose from the following
sections: coral, the giant ten-meter deep aquarium tank, jellyfish, deep-sea
fish, fish living in the local Suruga Bay, anemone (clown) fish, children’s touchpool, megamouth sharks, and mechanical aquarium (“mecarium”) underwater
robots. To teach organizational and English skills for describing things andmaking the floor guide, the authors created five activities. The first activity waslearning observational and brainstorming skills. The authors prepared animal
pictures from old calendars for each group. The group members brainstormed
and wrote down ideas about the pictures in the following three categories:“What I already know about the things in my picture,” “What I see in the
picture,” and “Questions I have about what I can see in the picture.” (Appendix
A). In the second activity, half of the groups took on the role of presenters anddescribed their pictures using their notes from the first activity. The audience
members moved around the presenter group stations in a roundtable format,
while listening to the descriptions and asking questions to the presenters. These
questions from the audience helped the presenters think about their animal
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picture more deeply and understand the kinds of details they needed to add to
make their descriptions better. After the first round of presentations finished,
the groups changed their roles and the audience became the presenters forround two. Each group practiced describing their pictures eight times over two
90-minute lessons. After this practice, the students tried the third activity, which
was to begin the marine science museum research project. The students wrote
down their ideas about their section in the marine science museum in a similar
way as the picture description activity. The brainstorming chart for activity threeincluded the following sections: “What I know about my group’s section of themuseum now,” “What I want to learn about my section when I go to the marine
science museum,” and “What I think foreign visitors would find interesting
about my group’s section of the museum” (Appendix B). Then the groups
researched information on the Internet and in their content class textbooks andnotes to find the answers to the first two sections of the chart and brainstormed
more ideas about what they wanted to learn when they visited the marine science
museum. During this activity, they also made lists of questions for the staff at themarine science museum. Using this information, they brainstormed ideas for thethird section of the chart and started to decide what they wanted to include in
their floor guide sections. After doing their initial research, the students went
to the marine science museum to observe the actual displays and interview thestaff for activity four. In order to visit the aquarium before its opening hours,
the authors visited there in advance to discuss the project with the staff andarrange the visit, which took place just before the Golden Week holiday in earlyMay. On the day of the visit, the students observed their sections and took notes
and photographs for about forty minutes by themselves. After that, they toured
the museum with a staff member who explained the exhibits. During the tour,
they asked the staff member questions about the displays and made field notes.
Students who were unable to join the museum visit were assigned to visit themuseum to observe and interview staff by the end of Golden Week.
The final activity was to make a floor guide. The authors emailed a floor plan
template to the students who used class sessions in the computer room to enter
their section details and pictures into the template. The students spent one lesson
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Gough and Katoin the computer room to make their initial section explanation and emailed thefile to the authors. While they were making the first draft of the floor guide, thestudents needed to know how to describe their sections, but they did not knowsome English expressions and vocabulary to complete the task. To answer theseneeds and teach the content English needed to complete the floor guide, theauthors made a Google survey and sent it to the students. The students sent backsome expressions written in Japanese that they wanted to know for describing
the museum. Then the authors translated the expressions from Japanese to
English and put them into an Excel file. The language in the file was divided two
ways. First, expressions students wanted to learn based on their marine science
museum section were listed. The second section divided the expressions into
lists based on grammar points. The expressions and vocabulary in the file were
uploaded to the Quizlet online quiz-making application to make quiz games that
could be accessed from the English Communication 2018 page on https://www.
wendysintoenglish.com/. The students were then able to do practice quizzes forthe content English expressions, grammar points, and vocabulary.
In class, the students used iPads to practice translating the expressions online
and did competitions to see which group could complete the matching quizzes
the fastest. PDF documents of the students’ floor guide sections were also
uploaded to the class website. To practice explaining the floor guide contents,
the student groups presented their sections of the marine science museum using
the iPads in the same roundtable format that was used in activity two, andthe groups that watched the presentations made notes to give feedback to thepresenters (Appendix C). After that, the students went back to the computerroom and revised their floor guide sections using the English expressions theyacquired and the advice from their classmates. In the next lessons, they gave
presentations to the other groups in the roundtable format again. Once again,
they received advice from their classmates after their presentations, and they
then revised and finalized the floor plan during the next lesson in the computerroom. The finalized floor guide was checked for natural language use, grammar,
and format by the authors, then the marine science museum staff checked theaccuracy of the contents. Finally, the floor guide was made into an iBook that134

Fieldwork Projects to Learn Content English, OCJSI 1, pages 128-142

can be downloaded onto a smartphone, tablet, or computer. Student volunteers
will be able to download the floor guide onto their smartphones and use it in the2019 tourism season.

Student Reactions to the Project

As the students planned, researched, prepared, and practiced explaining theirmarine science museum sections with each other, the authors observed themin the classroom. They took pictures and made notes about the students’
engagement in the group work then discussed their observations of the students’interactions. They noticed that a majority of the students remained on task.
Furthermore, whether high or low-level English learners, the students seemed totry their best to learn the language and technological skills needed to complete
the explanations in the floor plan, then explain about the sections to their peers.
The authors observed the students actively engaged in each stage of the project bybrainstorming ideas together, sharing ideas, and helping each other. For example,
lower-level students sometimes asked the higher-level students for Japanesetranslations of expressions they did not understand. Also, the students who weremore familiar with making documents on computers helped their peers wholacked these skills. Students also researched together and exchanged personal
knowledge about the creatures and their section of the museum floor guide toteach each other about content. When practicing vocabulary and language skills,
the students actively participated in the Quizlet activities, which were intended
to help them develop the English vocabulary and structures needed to complete
the project.
At the end of each class, the students completed a daily reflection in which
they briefly wrote in English what they did in class that day, gave themselves a
grade for the day, and reflected on their performance or the day’s activity. The
reflection sheets were double-sided A4 pages with boxes for one reflection foreach of the 30 class periods over the semester. At the end of the semester, theauthors read the reflections and tallied the students’ daily grades and reflections
into extremely positive, positive, neutral, and negative. They also looked forthemes in the written reflections that showed patterns in the students’ feelings
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about the language learning in general, PBL, and learning English to describe
content related to their majors. The reflection papers overwhelmingly showedthat despite some linguistic difficulties, the students enjoyed sharing ideas andlearning from their group members and were eager to learn English skills to talkabout the marine science museum.
The students’ daily reflections from the classes during the brainstorming
and planning stage indicate that the students expanded their knowledge
through collaboration with group members and were interested in the project.
They also reflected on what they needed to study to successfully complete theproject. Student comments included “I’m so happy to join my group because I’minterested in explaining this area in English,” “I could get many information,” and“My group members are very competent.” One student reflected on knowledge
he needed to learn: “Tokai University aquarium have many history and I
wanna know some knowledge.” Thus, the planning stage of the project helped
the students understand their current level of knowledge about their museum
sections as well as what they needed to learn both linguistically and content-wise.
The students also reported positive experiences when completing the fifth
activity, which was making the floor plan. While working in the computerroom to fill in information into the museum floor plan templates, the students
reflected, “I enjoyed to cooperate with my group,” “We finished our task thanks
for my encouraging groupmates,” or “I was able to cooperate together. I enjoyed
English.” Likewise, the students felt the quizzes the authors made to help themlearn the English expressions for making the floor plan were engaging and useful:“Quiz is good for me to learn aquarium,” “I can explain sea creatures that lived in
Suruga Bay now,” “We can learn many kind of sentences. So fun,” and “I studies
about the aquarium. Very interesting to me.” Overall, across the various English
levels in the class, the students reported positive feelings about the group workand language learning activities, which helps promote positive feelings about
English language learning and a willingness to try to engage in English language
activities with classmates.
Throughout the semester, the authors observed the students’ positive
attitudes through their active participation and attempts to use the vocabulary
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and structures they studied in the online quizzes. When they presented theirmuseum sections to their classmates, they often referred to the lists in the Excel
file or prompted each other by offering help when a classmate forgot vocabulary
or made a mistake with a grammatical structure. To test the students’ retentionof the content language they learned, the authors used the items from the online
quizzes to make a language test at the end of the semester in July 2018. The
results of this test will be discussed in a future paper. Overall, the authors feltthat through the brainstorming, planning, creation, and language acquisition
phases of the project, the students were able to experience the benefits of projectbased learning similar to those found by Astawa, Artini, and Nitiasih (2017)
and Fujimura (2016). They learned cooperative learning skills, expanded theircontent knowledge through participation in group activities, learned content
English, and enjoyed the creative environment.

Conclusion

The elective content-based PBL course described in this paper was developed asa means to meet student interests and needs at a university where the English
language curriculum follows a general communication syllabus. Throughinteractions with students, the authors found that many students are interested
in learning content English, so they designed and implemented the course andproject described in this paper. Because the authors are English instructors
without deep knowledge of marine science, they focused the marine science floor
guide project on teaching the students observation, research, and language skills.
The students were also able to tap into their prior knowledge of the content asthey learned how to explain about the university’s marine science museum inEnglish. The students found the floor map project engaging and they showedinterest in learning English skills to talk about content they are learning in otherclasses at the university.
The university where this course was taught is unique in that it has a museumthat is directly connected to research conducted at the university and thecontent the students study in their majors. This enabled the authors to designa unique project-based content English course where the students learned to137

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explain their content interests as well as to create materials that will be useful tovolunteers and staff working at the museum. The course also serves as a model for
combining content and projects in an English class when the instructors are notcontent teachers in the students’ majors. The course provided an autonomous
learning environment because the students were able to decide the content theywanted to include in their sections of the floor plan as well as the language theyfelt they needed to complete the project. In this way, the students determined
their English needs rather than the instructors telling them what they needed
to learn to complete the project. The authors believe similar projects canbe successfully designed to teach students to explain content they study intheir majors at other universities. Students in non-English speaking countries
sometimes have difficulty finding motivation to study English. As seen in thisproject-based content English course, projects that teach students to introduce
topics of interest help them learn that English can be useful to their lives andpromote interest in language learning.

References

Astawa, N. L. P. N. S. P., Artini, L. P., & Nitiasih, P. K. (2017). Project-basedlearning activities and EFL students’ productive skills in English. Journalof Language Teaching and Research, 8(6), 1147-1155. http://dx.doi.
org/10.17507/jltr.0806.16
Fujimura, T. (2016). EFL students’ learning through project work in a contentbased course. The Journal of Kanda University of International Studies, 28,
105-124.
Gough, W. M., & Kato, K. (2016). Community outreach and autonomous
learning. In P. Clements, A. Krause, & H. Brown (Eds.), Focus on thelearner (pp. 446-451). Tokyo, Japan: JALT. Retrieved from http://
jalt-publications.org/node/4/articles/5422-community-outreach-andautonomous-learning
Hashimoto, K. (2013). ‘English-only’, but not a medium-of-instruction policy:
The Japanese way of internationalising education for both domestic andoverseas students. Current Issues in Language Planning, 14(1), 16-33.
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https://doi.org/10.1080/14664208.2013.789956
Ministry of Education. (2014, September 26). Report on the future improvement
and enhancement of English education (outline): Five recommendations
on the English education reform plan responding to the rapid globalization.
Retrieved from Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science andTechnology – Japan website: http://www.mext.go.jp/en/news/topics/
detail/1372625.htm
Ng Chin Leong, P. (2009). The power of problem-based learning (PBL) in the
EFL classroom. Polyglossia, 16, 41-48.
Ornstein, A. C., & Hunkins, F. P. (2014). Curriculum: Foundations, principles,and issues. Essex, England: Pearson.
Prensky, M. R. (2010). Teaching digital natives: Partnering for real learning.
Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin.
Westwood. P. S. (2008). What teachers need to know about teaching methods.
Camberwell, Australia: ACER Press.

Author bios

Dr. Wendy M. Gough is an associate professor at Bunkyo Gakuin University inTokyo. Ms. Gough’s doctoral research focused on the use of fieldwork for developing
intercultural skills and communicative competence in English. She also researches
activities for creating communities of learners in reading and writing classrooms.
Wednesdaysensei@gmail.com
Kazumi Kato is a lecturer at Tokai University, school of Marine Science andTechnology, Shimizu campus. Ms. Kato’s research interests are interlanguage
pragmatics, speech acts, task-based language teaching, and cooperative learning. She
is also interested in finding opportunities for her students to use authentic English.
kazumilk@tokai-u.jp
Received: November 1, 2018
Accepted: March 22, 2019139

Gough and Kato

Appendix A
Observation Practice

Look at your picture and make some notes with your partner.
What I already know about
the things in my picture.

What I see in the picture.

Questions I have about what I
can see in the picture.

Notes about my picture after presenting it to other groups:

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Fieldwork Projects to Learn Content English, OCJSI 1, pages 128-142

Appendix B

Tokai University Marine Science Museum
Floor Guide Brainstorming

What I know about mygroup’s section of the museum
now.

What I want to learn about
this section when I go to themuseum.

What I think foreign visitors
would find interesting about
my group’s section of themuseum.

Look at the brainstorming chart. When you visit the marine science museum forobserving your section of the project, write down what you find out (in Japaneseis OK) then what you need to research more.
What I saw in my group’s
section of the museum.

What I learned that would beinteresting to foreign visitors.

Other notes.

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What I need to do more
research about so I can make agood explanation.

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Appendix C

Explaining About the Marine Science Museum
Part A: Use this chart to brainstorm ideas to tell other groups about your sectionof the Tokai University Marine Science Museum.
Your section name:Main Points you will explain:

The most interesting points. You should explain why you think these areinteresting.

Part B: Listen to the other groups’ descriptions of their Marine Science Museum
sections. Don’t just copy the answers. Listen, ask questions, and make notes.
Section nameWhat I learned.

Advice for revising the guide.

Section nameWhat I learned.

Advice for revising the guide.

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