Sunday, March 8, 2015

Is Elementary School Homework obsolete? English Conversation Lesson

English conversation lesson about a school that has decided not to assign homework. 

This is an interesting question, whether students in elementary school should be assigned homework.  I remember sitting with my kids for hours just teaching them how to read in First Grade, I live in Israel and Hebrew, if you speak the language already is not so hard to decode.  You see a letter, you read it. As a parent, Hebrew was not my native language, so it was more difficult for me, and I had to sit for hours with my children to actually teach the reading that they didn't understand at school.  Recently, two of my kids are in 6th and 8th grade.  They are English speakers, and there are no other English speakers in their classes, so the English teachers have asked me to sit with my kids and teach them myself.  I'm an English teacher so yes, I know how to teach English, but what about other parents that the teachers don't know how to reach?  When I was substituting for a First Grade classroom in English, I really didn't want to give homework, because I knew that in the end the parents would be the ones doing it for the kids.  

Read this text and have a conversation in English about it with your English teacher 
http://www.businessinsider.com/new-york-city-public-school-banished-homework-2015-3

Key Terms
abolishing
outragiing
frustration 
exhaustion
loss of interest
analyzing studies 
reading at their own pace
academic success
overarching
not going over well with parents
yank their kids from the school
 isn't viable
lottery
unstructured reading
the landscape of homework




Questions
Is this a good policy for the school?
What do you feel about the New York School that doesn't assign homework?
What type of homework is the most benefical?
Do math worksheets really help students?
What do you think about writing essays in the native language?
How much homework do you or your children do every night? 
How much time should different age groups do homework? 
Should the parents sit with the child while the homework is being done? 
When is the best time to do homework?
Does homework help you?
How much homework is too much?
How can the school limit the time the kids spend on videos and computers?
Hou can unstructured reading help students succeed in school?
What about students who have difficulty reading?
Could audio books replace reading? 
What do you think about the parents who want to take their children from the school?  
What message does not giving homework in math and English say to kids?
How can children of lower economic status use their time when both parents work, or it is a one-parent household?


English Conversation lesson by Rachael Alice Orbach 




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