Social Projects in Language Teaching (within Linguistics Department)

Within the currently dominating Communicative Language Teaching approach (CLT), project method has gained due respect in today’s EFL/ESL (English as Foreign/Second language) classrooms and remains an effective way to facilitate learning and promote conscious language use. At the same time, projects are equally powerful in raising social awareness in students. As students face relevant social issues in their EFL classrooms, project work not only helps them exit the habitual classroom to discuss real-world complexities, but also makes students use the English language as the only means of communication thus amplifying the beneficial effect of this EFL activity. This paper proposes the category of social projects, which are designed to offer students real-life situations and exposing them to feedback from native speakers. Variety and advantageous educational implementation of social projects are examined on the basis of a case study conducted at Higher School of Economics to gather empirical data on the potential of this type of EFL activity. Additionally, a survey response analysis is used to discuss the method. The results of the study may contribute to a practice-based understanding of the method and suggest recommendations for further usage of EFL social projects in higher education contexts.