I have been very fortunate that my school has allowed me to experiment, and try new things in my classes. I love using projects and specialty styled lessons to break up the monotonous textbook learning. Some are very easily incorporated into lessons, and other require much time and effort on your part to get them executed. I teach high school reading and writing primarily, but with some creativity, some of these ideas can be allocated to other topics and subjects. 

1. Poster Projects: Every year, our textbook has a unit discussing Overcoming Adversity. To help reinforce the concepts of the unit, my students are required to develop a poster expressing how to overcome adversity, and what we learn from those challenging times in our lives. The students can either do a poster on their own, or work with a partner. Supplies are simple. A0 or A1 sized paper, and markers, paints, crayons, colored pencils. When finished, we hang them in the stairwells of our building for all to view them. 

2. Another annual project I do is having the students develop their own children's book. I teach them narrative essay writing skills, and this leads into this project. They must develop their stories and the illustrations for their books. The books are made of 3-4 pages of A4 colored paper folded in half. Over the years, they have gotten more and more creative, developing pop-up books, activities in the books, and interactive things in the books. When finished, they are displayed on tables for the rest of the school to see. 

3. I like to give the Briggs/Jung Personality evaluation to my students. This is the evaluation of the 16 different personality types. You can find the test online at various websites. I like to use the humanmetrics.com test. There are 64 questions. I put the questions on the classroom screen and let the kids answer them. To get best results, I have one student translate the English into Chinese for clarification and to get the best results. I then enter the results into the website (very time consuming). At the end, I provide them a 6-8 page report of their personality that I had developed for each personality type, and I show them a PPT of their personality types. 

4. One of the biggest projects I have taken on is developing our annual theatrical performance. I had to teach myself every aspect of how to do this, as I have had no formal trainign or experience in doing anything like this. Lots of trial and error. I have taken two performances and "dumbed" down the language to develop the scripts. We alternate each year between "A Christmas Carol", and "Fiddler on the Roof". Drama and theater are excellent methods of teaching English language to students. After months of rehearsals, stage development, and other preparations, the students get to perform the show in front of 800 students and parents. If they do not want to act and sing, the students can learn the construction skills of developing the scenery, and the technical side of sound, lighting, and video production. 

Other projects I have done in class are: body language, research paper writing skills, college life skills, debates, and cooking lessons. I have even developed my own textbook for writing essays, in which the school has allowed me to use in the classroom. 

There are many more projects available online. You just need to spend time searching for them, have the creativity to adapt them to your classroom, and have a willingness to put forth the effort to go above and beyond what is typically expected. If I had to just teach from a dry, boring textbook all year, I would go nuts, and my students would passively get through the year. The key to success with project-based learning is to start small. This builds your confidence in being able to do this kind of teaching. It also allows the school to build trust in your abilities as they see the results you are getting. If thes school see the results of projects, like posters and children's books, then they will take bigger chances on larger projects you are inclined to take on in the future. Not only do the kids have fun doing things out of the ordinary, but you will enjoy the diversity of teaching.