GOLD STANDARDS OF PBLL DESIGN 1. Challenging Problem or

Question Present a meaningful and engaging question about a real-world problem used to increase proficiency in the L2 and engage with the target culture.

2. Sustained Inquiry Facilitate sustained inquiry in the L2 over an extended period of time that delves into multiple layers of a topic, engages in meaningful com-munications, and spurs intercultural connections.

3. Authenticity Integrate authentic texts, while engaging in authentic communication and promoting authentic evaluation while solving a real-world problem and making a real-world impact.

4. Student Voice & Choice Give student choices in the design, creation, and presentation of the pub-lic project and allow for learner autonomy by leading students to define their own language learning goals.

5. Reflection Promote and provide significant opportunities for learners to reflect on language and cultural knowledge and raise awareness of their own com-municative and culture competence in the process.

6. Critique & Revision Use scaffolding and modeling plus constructive feedback on language use (instructor) as well as project content (instructor, peers, and external experts) guided by clearly designed assessment rubrics.

7. Public Product Create a public product designed for consumption by speakers of the L2 which demonstrates both target language and cultural competencies.

5. PBLL Project Description 5.1 Problem/Challenge

As shown in Table 3, a main tenant of PBLL is to begin with a question about an intriguing conceptual issue, concerning social problem, or school or community challenge, etc. that is relevant to your learner audience that they will work together to solve using sustained inquiry over the course of the semester. For our problem and/or challenge, we chose: How do we help graduating and newly graduated Pashto learners locate employment both in the public and private sectors home and abroad utilizing their skills as Pashto speakers?

5.2 Purpose

Next, it is important to explain to the learners why it is important to work on the assigned problem, including how participating in the project will help the class participants, school, community, or the world. We provided the following statement of purpose for our learners:

Pashto learners often find themselves challenged to secure relevant employment after graduation. The opportunities are plentiful, but the graduate often lack the resources and/or connections to locate them.

Learners will work together to help solve this problem of Finding Job Opportunities for Pashto Speakers, by creating an exhaustive resource for soon to be and newly graduated students looking for employment utilizing their language proficiency skills.

5.3 For Public Product

An essential component of a well-developed PBLL is a final product consumable by a predefined public audience of L1 or L2 speakers and others. This product should be developed so that it is actually demonstrated and/or shared with the intended audience within the timeframe of the course (i.e. a public produce that is developed but then never shared cannot be evaluated for its effectiveness). We required the following public product for the learners to develop cooperatively as a team.

The final project will be a working online resource that should include at a minimum:

• list of potential employers (including descriptions and contact information)

• sample resumes/CVs and cover letters along with tips and tricks on writing these

• resources on the most widely accept proficiency exams

• interview preparation videos.

Other areas of interest can be added by students as they research and develop the online tool.

5.4 Public Audience

Finally, it is essential to define for the learners who is the audience who must benefit from the

information gleaned during the process of the project and the use of the final product, so that they can accurately develop a solution that will meet the needs of the intended audience. We defined the following required

audience for our learners to consider while solving their problem and developing their public product.

The audience for the final project is:

1. Soon to graduate, graduating, and newly graduating Pashto learners (employment seeking tool)

2. Language instructors (marketing tool to engage interested students and a retention tool encouraging learners to continue their studies and increase their proficiency)

3. Potential employers (recruiting tool for finding new graduates with the desired language proficiency skills)

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PBLL Instruction in an Online Language Learning Environment: A case study in Pashto

6. Results

Typically, at the end of one semester of Pashto (Intro I), we expect learners to score a 1 on the ILR OPI exam and learners who complete two semesters (Intro II) to score a 2 on the IRL OPI. At the completion of our PBLL courses, 100% of the learners who completed only Intro I performed higher than their typical non-PBLL peers and 43% of the learners who completed both Intro I and Intro II performed higher than their non-PBLL peers as shown in Tables 4 and 5 below.

Table 4: Introductory I only ILR scores Table 5: Introductory I and Introductory II ILR scores Additionally, survey respondents unanimously reported they felt the project was meaningful to their language learning experience and personal objectives enjoyed participating in the project felt their language learning experience and proficiency level benefited from the inclusion of this project would recommend including PBLL in future Pashto language courses.

7. Reflections

Overall, our findings were consistent with what we expected based on our hypothesis about

incorporating PBLL. However, we were surprised that based on our small sample, it was the Intro I learners who seemed to benefit the most from PBLL, with all the Intro I-only learners performing higher than normal on the ILR OPI. The undergraduate participants scored 1+, instead of the typical 1 and the graduate participants scored a 2 at the end of Intro I, the score usually expected of learners at the end of the Intro II course!

Our second most significant finding was the self-reported increase of interest and motivation via the post-course questionnaires. We expected learners to be highly interested and motivated by the content matter, but we were especially pleased to find that learners unanimously reported feeling more motivated and interested in this project, recommending the continued use in future courses. As a result of this study, we will be continuing the use of PBLL in our future LCTL online course development.

References

American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL). (1996). Standards for foreign language learning: Preparing for the 21st century. Yonkers, NY: ACTFL.

American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL). World-Readiness Standards for Learning Languages. Retrieved from http://aappl.actfl.org/ (accessed October 2, 2016).

Buck Institute for Education. Gold Standard PBL: Essential Project Design Elements. Retrieved from https://

www.pblworks.org/what-is-pbl/gold-standard-project-design (accessed October 2, 2016).

Interagency Language Roundtable. ILR Proficiency Standards: Retrieved from http://www.govtilr.org/Skills/

ILRscale1.htm (accessed October 2, 2016).

Mikulec, E. and Miller, P. (2011). Using Project-Based Instruction to Meet Foreign Language Standards. The Clearing House, 84; 81-86. UK: Taylor & Francis Group.

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