Job Discussion Forums

[Glenski]

On another discussion forum, a question was raised as to whether eikaiwa teachers give homework.

Would eikaiwa teachers please respond here? I would be particularly interested in knowing the following:

1. Do you give homework?
2. How often per class?
3. Are your students adults or children (HS age or younger)?
4. What eikaiwa do you work at (optional)?
5. Just what is this homework?
6. How well is the homework received by students?

As for me, when I worked at an eikaiwa (culture center, actually), we used Spectrum and New Interchange textbooks. Besides being non-conducive to creating good lesson plans, the books really didn't call for any homework, and the management didn't ask us to do it anyway. So, we didn't. All students were adults. The closest I came to giving homework was in an advanced level News Topic class, in which I merely requested that students bring in a news headline or short clipping every week so we could discuss it. They did it half of the time, and relied on me for the other half.

[Eleckid]

Yes, I work at an eikaiwa.

1. Yes, I give hwk to all my students except for some adult students who requested NOT to have hwk. Giving out hwk is a requirement from my school.

2. Students come for lessons once a week, & I give out hwk every lesson (I also give them tests every lesson).

3. I teach students from age 2 to age 60+. We even give out hwk for the 2 yr-olds cuz they only come once a week, so we don't want them to forget as much as we can.

4. A small private eikaiwa.

5. 2 yr-olds: draw something in their sketchbook, depending on what topic was taught. (ex. this week they learned "big" & "small", so hwk was to draw something big & something small. They also need to draw something that starts with a letter, this week we're up to doing E (their moms are in the classroom too, it's a baby & mom class)).

kindergarten: they use 2 texts. Each text has its own hwk (1 comes with a wkbk), so 2 hwk per lesson. It's basically coloring, circle things, connecting the dot, & sometimes write numbers. Some older tots have an extra notebook to practice writing their name & alphabets.

gr 1-2: they use 2 texts, one comes with a wkbk. Hwk there is coloring, numbering things, etc. They also do Upper & Lowercase book for each terms. Basically practicing their alphabets. Again, 2 hwk.

gr 3: they use 2 texts, 1 comes with a wkbk. They practice writing alphabets, spelling, & simple grammar points from the book. Sometimes an extra book on a topic (ex. adj, school vocabs, verbs, nouns) is given as a suppliment. I give out extra hwk sheets for kids who are behind or new.

gr 4-5: 1 or 2 texts, & it comes with a wkbk. Hwk is whatever is from the wkbk.

gr 6: 1 or 2 texts with wkbk. They also have another set of texts w/wkbk for the 20 min Japanese side, it's for their day school.

Jr High: 1 text with wkbk, & also 1 text w/wkbk from Japanese side.

High school & up: they are adults & uses 1 text, some includes wkbk, some doesn't. But we try to give them hwk every week unless the whole class has decided that they don't want hwk.

6. How well? Well they're used to it & they don't complain about it. We don't give out a huge amount of hwk, just 1 or 2 pages per book, & it's related to what they learned that day, so it's not difficult. 90% of students do their hwk (that's for the entire school), whether they are kids or adults. I think my school has a good system for learning.

I forgot (thus the editing) what books my school uses. Most of them I think are from Longman, some from Oxford. We use Pingu, Tiny Talk, Max & Millie, Supertots, Let's Go, American start with English, Jack & Jill, Side by Side, ExpressWay, and the Impact series.

[Sweetsee]

I worked for 10 years at a small Eikaiwa using Streamlines, Interchange, and others. I never gave homework. I taught students from 6 to 60 years of age.

[AgentMulderUK]

1. Do you give homework?
Yes, sometimes

2. How often per class?
About 10%-15% of the time.

3. Are your students adults or children (HS age or younger)?
I only give hw to children. My students are 40% kids.

4. What eikaiwa do you work at (optional)?
A small private language school.

5. Just what is this homework?
Usually finishing off workbook pages that we did not have time to complete in the lesson time. Also I set pages that were missed by students that were absent at the time, so as to keep everyone up to date (and to provide a little extra incentive to turn up to lessons)
Also, if I think they need extra practice, I sometimes ask them to complete half a page of their workbook, to reinforce a certain point.

6. How well is the homework received by students?
It comes as no surprise at all to them. I always keep it short, so as not to cause irritation, as Japanese kids have a lot of homework already from their usual schools.

[Akula the shark]

Parents of elementary school children tended to want their children to be given homework, thus I always assigned elementary school kids homework. Adults, however, didn't tend to want homework, and thus I seldom assigned any.

[guest of Japan]

[saloc]

1. Yes
2. Every class
3. 3-60
4. I run my own small Eikaiwa
5. Kids have to listen to CDs we made to accompany our curriculum and then complete a few reading / writing tasks which demonstrate comprehension. Adults either do homework based on that day's lesson or work to prepare for the next.
6. Kids' parents appreciate their kids being given homework and almost every kid does it every week. Adults now expect it and rarely don't do their homework (but for adults it's never really a lot to do).

[Eric]

I work for an ekiwa school and for the majority of my classes which deal with conversational English I do not give homework. For my regular classes I might suggest reading up on something or prepare them for the next class, but no homework is given in the sense of supplemental material that is meant to compliment my teaching.

In returnee classes, which focus on reading, writing and maintance of oral skills in Englisn I do give homework. All of these students rotate through homework books that give them supplimental help in grammar, sentence structure, and capitalization. These students are already conversational in Englsih and use language for learning rather then having language contextualized so they can grow in English conversation.