Job Discussion Forums

[Jizzo T. Clown]

What's the best method?

Seems like lots of students don't take their homework seriously, then they wonder why they fail their tests. I've tried nearly everything I can think of, and the ones who do it always do it; the ones who don't...never do.

[Glenski]

So fail them. If you have the records, you are supported.
How much of their grade depends on homework, by the way? Make it a large chunk, but not 100% of their grade.
What sort of homework are you asking them to do?
Do they have to hand it in personally on paper, or did you make a blog so they can do it online and have a little fun?
Do you even explain their mistakes after you've corrected the homework?
Is the homework clear enough for them to understand? Have you asked?

I have had little trouble with uni students doing my homework. They know what is expected, and what happens if they don't do enough of it. They also get feedback from me on the major mistakes.

[White_Elephant]

When I assign homework, which is not very often, I go around the room and personally check each and every student's workbook (the homework) to see that it's done. Students know that I do that. I have about three hundred students and almost all of them do the homework. I might get three to five people out of three hundred who fail to do it. Their homework is part of their participation points which is worth ten percent of their grade. It's worth mentioning that my students are not self-motivated and the threat of me talking to them about failing to do the homework is their motivation. When they come back to class with the homework assignment, I have in-class assigments that are based on their homework.

[ls650]

[Jizzo T. Clown]

[gaijinalways]

I've introduced some quizzes for some classes now, and yes, this would seem to get some students to study more (some students still fail the quiz even after a quick review prior to it ). Again though, I don't feel like my job is to be master of the universe, but it is very true, students who think that their poor work habits will go over well in the workplace are in for a rude awakening .

Question for our bloggers; what kind of blog homework do you assign and why is it easier to correct (because it is paperless)? And how are you affected by storage space (a lot of the blogs have some limitations on space from what I undestand)?

[White_Elephant]

[Glenski]

Gotta agree with White Elephant. Universities pretty much give teachers free rein. Nobody forces them to do much of anything. How are you forced to give daily homework?

I'm also curious about the expression "every night", as in 5 times a week. Is this true? Sounds like some super special sort of uni class to me. Mine meet only once a week, as do most that I know of.

[Jizzo T. Clown]

Our director doesn't constantly monitor our classes or anything, but she tells us (all the time) that since out program is "intensive," our kids need at least six hours of homework every night--her policy, not mine. And by every night, I mean M-Th, since Fridays are their lab days. I sometimes slack off a bit, especially before the holidays.

Maybe universities give free rein in Japan, but not mine! We teachers are held accountable to NCN, a recruiting agency for Japanese students, who expect us to get them into uni classes ASAP. And they require us to give their students enough work that they'll exit our program within 1 year or less. Yes, that is part of the problem, but that's what you have to deal with at US universities--politics. It's not all roses back home!

I have the same six classes every day.

As for types of exercises, most are note-taking, in which case each student has to listen to a lecture and turn in their notes. These can easily be four-six pages each.

Re: blogs, usually their assignment is a reading journal entry or to answer a question set from their texts. All I have to do is visit their blog and see that they wrote something that vaguely resembles the assignment and that they left comments on the other students' blogs.

Actually, I have had one or two assignments not get done because they didn't understand the directions in the book, but this happened in my low-level classes.

[White_Elephant]

[Jizzo T. Clown]

[Glenski]

Jizzo,
Without using White Elephant's large font, I will chime in again and agree with him/her. Your situation is not a typical university, or any university that I've ever heard of. It's some sort of intensive program, as you have admitted. All by itself that makes the difference... between what you do in a rare situation and what you put in the subject line here (what university teachers do). At least, that's one way to understand it -- that you were asking as if you were also working in a normal university.

Ok, now that we've sorted that out, I'll also agree with WE in that six hours of homework a night is ludicrous, but if this is what the students have signed up for (a total of 6 hours combined from your classes and others), then so be it in NCN's world of push, push, push. Just how long does this program last -- almost a year!!?? It's a wonder that your students don't jump off every bridge in sight, but if they are studying for a particularly strong reason, then NCN should make it clear to them and their parents what they will face. Do they?

So the director doesn't (and physically can't) monitor every teacher's classes. That doesn't mean the homework you give has to really last a long time, does it? As long as they are doing something you can claim is homework, make it such that it is easy to grade all the time. Do the hard stuff in the classroom, partly for hand in assignments that you correct, and partly for peer correction. Sounds like you are already doing that to some degree.

Lecturing and taking notes. Boring as snot, IMO. Are you doing some sort of guided listening during the lecture? If not, do it and ease up on the kids. Dictatory is a nice exercise (Google it). Are you teaching writing at all? If not, include simple exercises there to identify topic sentences, all the nouns, only the subjects, verbs vs. adjectives formed from participles, etc. and give that as easy homework.

Is this some sort of program for ronin students who couldn't get in the first time from high school? I can't figure who else would have the time to do almost a year of intensive daily classes.

[Jizzo T. Clown]

Glenski--

Thanks for the feedback. I don't teach writing, and it wouldn't be my place to do so, since my course is "Listening and Note-Taking Skills." This by definition necessitates the need to practice listening to lectures and exploring different note-taking techniques. Of course, I do what I can to keep it interesting, as there are many guided listening exercises. I also try to break the monotony by watching CNN or having the students teach a section of the text, but then this is off-topic.

Guess I should've titled this post "IEPs" instead of "unis."

However, I'm not sure that working in an IEP is such a *rare situation*, in fact, it's where many (if not most) MA TESOL grads end up if they want to work in the US.

And to clarify, these students come here from everywhere (not just Japan) to earn a degree from our university. They can't be admitted into normal classes until they either make a high enough score on the TOEFL, or successfully complete our program.

Sometimes it takes students two years to gain admission as a full-time "regular" student. Their sole purpose for being here is to take intensive academic English classes, so time isn't really an issue.

[gaijinalways]

WE posted

[Glenski]