ELT News Think Tank

This Month's Think Tank Panel

Marc Helgesen

Peter Viney

Setsuko Toyama

Roger Barnard

Panelists: Marc | Peter | Setsuko
Guest Panelist: Roger Barnard Date: July 2000

Topic: "Is it worth giving my students English homework during their school holidays?"

Roger Barnard

I like to point out to my art university students at the beginning of the academic year that:

a) our English course meets once a week for a year;
b) 'a year' actually means two twelve (or thirteen) week semesters, giving a total of about 24 lessons;
c) a lesson lasts 90 minutes.

Then I ask them to work out the total number of contact hours (a difficult task for art students). Eventually we agree on 36 hours. We then talk about the difference between intensive and extensive language courses, and generally agree that 36 hours spread over one year makes for an extremely extensive course.

The point I try to make is that because the contact hours are so limited, they are precious; for that reason the students should try to come on time, and make the most of the time available. I would like to be able to say with a tear in my eye that this makes an indelible impression on them, and for the rest of the year they all arrive on time, speak like motormouths in class, can't wait for the next lesson, and tell me that I've given them a blinding insight into the importance of time and the sweet brevity of life. Unfortunately that isn't the case, but there's always next year.

I also hope to make the students realize (and this is where I finally get around to this month's topic) that with so little time in class, it stands to reason that they will have to do something with English outside class if they want to improve their proficiency in the language. This relates to the idea of 'learner empowerment' that one correspondent mentioned last month.

The more limited our time in class, the more we should spend that time giving our students strategies for developing their English ability outside class. Our classroom activities will hopefully equip the students with a variety of ways of tackling real-life speaking, listening, reading and writing tasks that are appropriate to their needs and interests, as well as developing their skills as independent learners.

Our homework tasks should enable the students to put these strategies to use, and receive prompt feedback on their efforts. The tasks or activities we suggest for the summer vacation can be seen as an extended homework assignment, and a chance to see whether students can independently achieve some appreciable progress in one or more areas of English during a two-month period. Always remembering that they have other things to do …

I've found that when setting regular homework assignments, it's a good idea to set two tasks: the first is short, not particularly demanding, and aims to keep the student 'ticking over' in English until the next lesson. One example would be a short reading text on a particular topic, followed by a simple true/false or fill in the blank activity.

The second, requiring more effort, and probably more creativity, might entail the student finding more information on the topic on the Internet, and writing a short paragraph about his or her opinions (possibly as an e-mail message to you, the teacher). You hope that the first task will be done by the majority of the students, but expect less than a quarter to do the second. In other words, we accept that different students have different levels of motivation and allow for both.

The same principle can be applied to vacation assignments, and here are just two suggestions:

Task One (less demanding):
Have students buy one of the Cambridge University Press self-study texts (e.g. Essential Grammar in Use, or English Vocabulary in Use) with answer key and at the appropriate level and do one unit every day or every two days. You should be prepared to answer any queries at the beginning of the next semester.

Task Two (more demanding - for both student and teacher):
Ask the students to keep a diary, and write at least two or three sentences a day. They should write not only about what they do, but also their thoughts, impressions, and opinions. This can be written in a notebook and handed to you for comments in September, or students can e-mail you their entries y one or two weeks.

So to answer the orginial question: Yes, it's worth setting homework tasks for the summer vacation, but we have to accept that many students will come to their first class in September having done absolutely nothing at all; not only that, they will have forgotten everything they might have encountered during the first semester. Whatever you choose to do, make the assignment(s) simple, clear, and adaptable to different levels of ability and motivation. And if you promise to check everything on their return, you have to do it! And while you're about it, set yourself a vacation task; mine will be to plod through a Japanese textbook and practice basic Japanese conversational Japanese in Sussex pubs. But I probably won't do it.

Panelists: Marc | Peter | Setsuko
Guest Panelist: Roger Barnard

Roger Barnard, Tama Art University

Co-author of Fifty-Fifty and Business Ventures

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