As I sit here at the dining room table working on my Spanish homework for the night, I wonder to myself what good it is doing for me. So far in my experience in Costa Rica with learning Spanish at CPI, I have had homework each night. This homework consists of workbook pages where I fill in the blanks of sentences by conjugating a verb given to me or I answer a simple question. For all of the pages, I have been able to look at another page in a textbook provided by the school to find the answer. It has been fairly easy thus far, usually taking about 30 minutes each night. However, tonight I am really questioning the purpose of this "busy work." While I am on this trip, I stay at the homes of two different host families. Because of this opportunity to interact, I have learned a great deal of Spanish just by having conversations with my families. Whenever I have to work on my homework, it just takes away from this other great learning experience. It would be a great idea if my Spanish teacher could give us similar things to work on at home, but instead of a worksheet, we could have things to work on with my family. This would also help me improve my speaking and listening skills in Spanish. My classmates and I all agree that we are much better at writing Spanish because it is what most of us have done in classes in high school or college. Even though some families might not be willing to help us with this "homework," much like parents in the U.S. not being able to help their child with homework, it would still be more beneficial than worksheets. When I become a teacher, my dream is to have a "flipped classroom" set-up. In this way, students would watch videos of lessons at home to gain the content, and then would use class time with me to apply the information. Of course in this situation there would also be students who would be unable to complete the "homework," so accommodations would need to be made. In this set-up, students would not have typical homework. Instead, the teacher would assign videos to watch every now and then and would also provide ideas of ways in which parents could help their child practice or learn.
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AuthorI am an MSU graduate and 4th grade teacher in Carthage, MO. This is just a collection of things I've learned that I thought were important enough to share. Archives
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