For the first 15 years of my teaching career (I am currently on year 20), I taught very traditionally. I used a textbook, went through it page by page, gave nightly homework assignments, quizzed regularly, and tested after 10-13 class days. The students worked on a writing portfolio which contained a paragraph for every chapter. We memorized vocabulary, made flash cards, took notes over grammar and worked on practice activities in class. What wasn't completed in class had to be done at home.
When I discovered sites that allowed me to create auto-graded assignments, I started to pay for yearly subscriptions and transferred everything to those sites, eliminating worksheets and paper. I reveled in the fact that I had less grading to do. It was amazing! At least, cutting back on time spent grading was amazing.
Through all of this, however, there were still some big problems. For example, many students didn't do the homework. Grades dropped and test scores were low. So, then I spent time calling trying to reach parents, who fussed at their kids to get them to do homework or blamed me for giving too much homework.
When I began to focus more on using TPRS and studying brain research in language acquisition, I began to see that homework, or at least the homework I gave, was hurting my students. Grades were low, even for students who did the work. Some of those students eventually gave up. I wasn't there to help them, they had no place to get help without cheating, and they felt defeated.
That was exhausting, for all of us!
The first TPRS workshop I attended focused on assessing and "practicing" in class. There was no need to take anything home. I found that, at least for French, I have been more successful just asking my students to understand. When I start to say or write something they don't understand, they have one job: ask for clarification. That's it.
No homework. No quizzes. No tests.
Do I assess? Of course! Do we practice? Absolutely! Do students study on their own? Sometimes.
I have found that giving students writing assignments or exit slips and having conversations with them on a regular basis gives me enough information to see where they are. I put these in the test categories in the gradebook and everybody is happy. Grades have increased drastically because I have started working with their brains, not against them. I just didn't have the information that I needed about brains those first 15 years.
For the past year, e-learning being so important, I have found some things that students can do at home to be successful and give them authentic practice. I love listening to polyglots and hearing their strategies for language acquisition. They are developing their own homework. They only do what they like and what they can do independently. This is what practice should look like.
So, I will probably still refrain from giving students work outside of class. Time is short and other classes can make use of their homework time. They work, have jobs, and want to spend time with family and friends so I have opted not to intrude on that time.
However, for the next e-learning day or if I ever change my mind about having them do anything at home, here are a few ideas I will probably choose from:
- Watch a movie you know well but turn the audio to French. If you use subtitles, keep those in French, too.
- Find French music you like and learn the words. Go ahead, use Google Translate to help. Google Translate has its place.
- Duolingo
- Look for popular French "word chunks" and memorize them (instead of individual words).
- Look on YouTube for videos in French about topics that interest you. (I love true crime so I love finding French true crime stories.)
- Podcasts - You can find LOTS of podcasts on Spotify and YouTube (to name a couple) that are short and interesting.
I'd love to learn from you so comment below.
www.iheartlanguagelearning.com
cheryl@iheartlanguagelearning.com
No comments:
Post a Comment