homework

[huda23]

hi harry , how are you ? , these are very wonderful ideas for homework , that's what i mean by making the teaching fun , your students must like you very much Harry because the activities which you suggest makes learning alive , not a systematic process which we done and obliged pupils to do it at home as a home punishment and not a home assignment . by the way , here in Egypt , for the first , second and third year in primary school , we call it home fun because it concentrates on doing activities such as colouring , drawing , etc and i will try to do all the activities which you said in the classroom because they are very simple and familiar . Thank you for all your advices , i appreciate them very much and i'm waiting for more .

[Harry Smith]

Originally Posted by huda23

hi harry , how are you ? , these are very wonderful ideas for homework , that's what i mean by making the teaching fun , your students must like you very much Harry because the activities which you suggest makes learning alive , not a systematic process which we done and obliged pupils to do it at home as a home punishment and not a home assignment . by the way , here in Egypt , for the first , second and third year in primary school , we call it home fun because it concentrates on doing activities such as colouring , drawing , etc and i will try to do all the activities which you said in the classroom because they are very simple and familiar . Thank you for all your advices , i appreciate them very much and i'm waiting for more .

Hi, Huda!
You ask me how I am. I must say I'm fine but I have a problem. My problem is that I'm very busy with my classes and consecuently have very little time for doing creative things: writing books first of all. I hope to have more free time in summer and we could socialise more often. I'm thinking of going on holiday in Egypt too. Cheers!

[huda23]

hi Harry , you know it is sometimes better to be busy rather than to be free , i like to be busy because this what makes life worth but sometimes this opinion change and i said i want to have just half an hour to think about nothing , to have a period of peace of mind , so GOD be with you . of course i'm very happy that you want to visit Egypt and i'm sure that you will enjoy every moment in it . not because it is my country but because Egypt is like a home to all people and we have an idiom in our culture that the one who drinks once of the river nile , must come back again


Good luck

[Harry Smith]

Originally Posted by huda23

hi Harry , you know it is sometimes better to be busy rather than to be free , i like to be busy because this what makes life worth but sometimes this opinion change and i said i want to have just half an hour to think about nothing , to have a period of peace of mind , so GOD be with you . of course i'm very happy that you want to visit Egypt and i'm sure that you will enjoy every moment in it . not because it is my country but because Egypt is like a home to all people and we have an idiom in our culture that the one who drinks once of the river nile , must come back again


Good luck

Hi, Huda!
You know I have my own proverb for it: Better to be busy than lazy.
I sent you an e-mail some minutes ago. I just had another idea on how to organise children's homework. Cheers!

[Humble]

Hi,
There’s a lot to discuss on the topic, colleagues.
HomeWORK. Who likes work? You and I? Perhaps. Children don’t. But learning a foreign language requires an awful lot of work. Learning only in class is very slow. Our challenge is to give it (the homework) a realistic stretch and ensure it’s as efficient as possible.
My vision may seem to some of you antediluvian. I think homework should mainly include reading , learning new words and writing grammar exercises.
I am against “creative” assignments at school, such as Prepare and be ready to tell a story of how you spent your summer holidays/ how you celebrate your family birthdays etc. Schoolchildren’s level is too low for that. What do they do? They spend a lot of time and effort on making a story in Russian, then looking for words in the dictionary to translate into English, then learning all the mess by heart. They just litter their brains with monstruous quasi-English.

Harry=As a teacher of English I tell my students to use the knowledge they get in class in life situations ( I mean speak English as much as it's possible).

).
What kind of situations give them a chance to do it?
Will they? Definitely not.

Harry=I just want to say that children should have a home assignment, not homework because we must give them some creative task to do at home. Such tasks are making reports or projects, writing short stories etc. A kind of hometask, I used to give many years ago , is to listen to the news on TV or watch a film and then discuss.

How are they supposed to prepare that? The same way I described above? Or to speak on the spot – translating their thoughts?
A child without a private tutor is not able to prepare such tasks. So what’s the use?
One of my pupils (16y.o.) sometimes comes and says, “We have to tell about Japanese traditions/ Halloween/ Generation gap.” I find it on the Net and adapt it.
At least half of our schoolchildren have no PCs. At least half of those who have have no access to the Net. How on earth are they all supposed to do their homework? They will come unprepared and feel guilty. Stupid assignments.

[Harry Smith]

Hi, Humble!
I'm sorry but I have to tell you some of my ideas regarding to what you've written. First of all today we live in the 21th century. I could agree with you 20 years ago. Today most of my school students often spend their holidays abroad and very often in one of English speaking countries. They speak English not only at the lessons. They use English in their everyday life. Some of them have friends in the UK, Canada or the USA. We watch films,the BBC news at the lessons and discuss them. Of course they have a lot of difficulties, but I can see they are trying very hard. Our lessons are different. We don't use those boring textbooks published many years ago. We can discuss this topic if you wish. I can make you sure that today's school is quite different ( at least it must be) from the one we had not long ago.
My best wishes Gagik Darbinyan

[Humble]

Harry,
I dare say only a tiny minority of EFL learners have all the possibilities you've described.

The 21st century

!
It's all rhetorics. If we are talking shop we are supposed to go into details.

We can discuss this topic if you wish.

It was not me who started the thread and we ARE discussing it, are we not?

[Harry Smith]

Originally Posted by Humble

Harry,
I dare say only a tiny minority of EFL learners have all the possibilities you've described.
!
It's all rhetorics. If we are talking shop we are supposed to go into details.

It was not me who started the thread and we ARE discussing it, are we not?

1. I know that not many EFL teachers have all the possibilities I have described. But you simply wait until someone does it for you. If you don't have a tape recorder, a TV set or a computer in class how do you teach your stusents? I just want to improve conditions of teaching English.
2. Some words about 21st century. Who is to blame that some teachers still work as the year is 1987 not 2007. Answer me, please. Have you ever invited a native speaker to your class?
3. And about homeworks in general. I never give a hometask to my students. They have homereading books which I check once a month. And of course they do what I have mentioned above.

[Humble]

Harry,

Neither I nor most other teachers have ever invited a native speaker. Where can we get them? Invite from Britain? Who'll pay the expenses? That's ridicilous.
Millions of people live in the middle of nowhere and learn English with books only, because it's not in their power to get all the technical means.
*
Your position is clear enough - you are against conventional homework.
I am not going to argue about it, we all have our own ways.

What surprises me, though, is that instead of a friendly exchange of ideas and a detailed discussion of methods you've used the thread as a rostrum for demagogy. You needn't preach to teachers unless they ask for it.
*
I wish more teachers would join in.

[Harry Smith]

Originally Posted by Humble

Harry,

Neither I nor most other teachers have ever invited a native speaker. Where can we get them? Invite from Britain? Who'll pay the expenses? That's ridicilous.
Millions of people live in the middle of nowhere and learn English with books only, because it's not in their power to get all the technical means.
*
Your position is clear enough - you are against conventional homework.
I am not going to argue about it, we all have our own ways.

What surprises me, though, is that instead of a friendly exchange of ideas and a detailed discussion of methods you've used the thread as a rostrum for demagogy. You needn't preach to teachers unless they ask for it.
*
I wish more teachers would join in.

A lot of British and American organisations have their offices in different parts of CIS. I have been working with them since 1993 at first in Armenia and now in Russia. They willingly visit schools and organise discussions with us. I'm very sorry that you live and work in a country where you can't even meet a foreigner in the street. As you see it's very easy to invite a native speaker to school. You need to go to the nearest ACCELS office and they'll help you, I'm sure.