No matter what my heart says about I hate homework I do have to admit that it is an necessary evil. It is the only way to reinforce what has been done in the classroom easily. If we did not use homework students would not remember anything from the previous day and would not be able to expand on it as easily. I know homework was essential for me when I first started learning Spanish, despite me hating it. Now I am thankful that my teachers worked me as hard as they did.
To me there are not many ways to misuse homework. I just would not swamp students with homework, because then they will start to hate the class just because of the homework load, and do not grade the homework. They should get full credit as long as they do it because while learning a new language you have to make mistakes. It is the only way to learn. I also believe that it should be given after the lesson, and be used as a reinforcing tool. I have had classes where the homework came first and then it was explained in class, but I found it to be very confusing. You definitely could not do it with low level students. I would consider for high level students but still would not recommend it.
As for the video, I have mixed feelings. I could see some of the tips helping you, but others not so much. Honestly I think everyone just needs to figure out what homework routine works for you. If music helps you, listen. If not, do not. It is all about personal preference. I definitely would not eat food while doing homework just for the sake of avoiding making a mess. Once again though that is just me.
I also think that teachers play an important role in providing feedback. I've heard many times that students say something like this: I don't pay too much attention to homework because my teacher hardly gives us feedback. For each homework, we just get a check mark and automatically receive a grade of A. What do you think about this?
ReplyDeleteThat is very true too. Feedback is definitely essential for learning. Otherwise it defeats the purpose and makes the students lazy. I saw some students try to get away with just filling in their homework with random answers just to have it done last year when I worked in a Spanish class and it definitely backfired on them.
ReplyDeleteAssigning too much homework is definitely one way that it can be "misused." Quality is definitely more important than quantity, and assigning too heavy a workload is one sure way to make students bitter about the subject material, and decrease student effort in some cases.
ReplyDeleteKevin and Lina: I totally agree that homework that is not graded, discussed or otherwise reviewed is not useful to students—if anything, it's just plain frustrating! My biggest complaint about FL classes here at UNH is that I frequently passed in long essays to professors, never to see them again. Even if I was rewarded with an "A," I am sure that there were still many mistakes that could be improved upon.
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