Teaching English to Young Learners (TEYL) nowadays again becomes an interesting issue in ELT. Meanwhile, this issue has been the characteristic of English Education Department. TEYL has been put in the curriculum for the third-year students of English Education Department of Universitas Muria Kudus. This course objective is to facilitate students with theories and practices of TEYL. For years, methods in the teaching and learning process were delivered through group presentations. It shows that it is not really effective.  The students did not have ideas and resulting in poor teaching practices. At the end of the course, the students are demanded to do teaching practice in a real elementary class setting. Therefore, the idea of implementing Project-based Learning was aroused. Project-based learning is not a new approach yet, still worthy of being implemented. It is because the nature of Project-based learning is providing students with some phases of learning in which it benefited them in acquiring knowledge on theories that led them to a better performance of teaching practice. The project in this course was teaching practice that should be accomplished in the end of the semester. The present research is qualitative research aimed at figuring out the students’engagement in doing the project. In order to answer the question, the data were obtained through teacher’s journals, questionnaire, and observation. Among 32 students, around 75% students  were not sure that they were engaged in the project well. It might be because the project was not conducted in the real formal school. It degraded the “sacral” of teaching practice and subconsciously influenced the students’ performance. It is met with their recommendation to have real students in real class setting for the project which was impossible due to the pandemic.

Affiliation: Universitas Muria Kudus, Central Java

Email: rusiana@umk.ac.id and nuraeningsih@umk.ac.id

NFN: no first name