Evaluation of the project:

Of course an evaluation always depends on the individual situation as well as on the experience with the language, the teacher and the classmates and so the feedback sometimes seems quite contradictory. But it seemed important to reveal all the impulses that had been given from the group to obtain an all-embracing picture of every single point of view in the class. So here are the aspects, positive and negative ones, which have been mentioned in the last lesson:

Positive aspects:

• The project was well structured.
• A presentation of the results via Internet is a good idea.
• Profound work for the little time we had.
• It was good to read an English book.
• The availability of a matching film was helpful for understanding the details.
• It was interesting to learn something about the background and it helped to understand the plot.
• We had a chance to get a glimpse of the situation in a public school.
• Work on the project was a change from the normal lessons.
• The teamwork worked really well.
• The topic was new and different.
• Working in groups was different from other lessons.
• Understanding English texts was improved.
• The topic was coherently structured.
• The choice of different topics in the classroom-test was beneficial.
• The lessons were fun.
• The book was well chosen.
• The characterisation was interesting.
• The classroom-test was well prepared in the lessons.
• A survey of the chapter’s contents was very useful.
• Short presentations after an Internet research helped to get access to the topic.
• We had a high standard of learning.
• We learned a lot of new words.

Negative aspects:

• Not all results were handed in to be presented on the web.
• The number of lessons was not sufficient, the time span between the lessons too long.
• It could have been better to see the film first.
• More sequences from the book should have been read.
• The topics should have been narrowed down more than it has been done.
• The timeframe for the different tasks was too narrow.
• Some topics could have been left out (general information on the events of the day).
• The intergroup development could have worked better. Some did too much, others rather nothing.
• The book was too difficult to read. Reading English is no fun.
• Classmates who were not interested in the project disturbed the working conditions.
• Checking what was understood so far would have been helpful for some.
• Discussions and role-plays would have been great, e.g. a meeting of the “Dead Poets Society” could have been re-enacted and the pictures published on the Internet.

Personal jottings for a second cycle:

Apart from some minor changes it is important not to carry out the project in a class with block instruction and one lesson per week (plus a cutback of lessons which was not foreseeable). So the problem of time, understanding and many others could have been erased, we would have managed to go deeper into the story and, of course, all the topics I would have liked to work on could have been realised. Sadly some of the core topics had to be left out because of surprising changes in the class schedule. But I think we did our best to fill a simple theoretical structure with life and each of the students, had the chance to take along some (cognitive, methodical and personal) impulses for the future - each according to the individual capacities and the willingness to change him- or herself. Or to put it in another way:

To be thrown upon one’s own resources, is to be cast into the very lap of fortune; for our facilities then undergo a development and display an energy of which they are previously unsusceptible.  (Benjamin Franklin)