Homework

My students--Korean students in general--do a lot of homework since they have multiple teachers: at least one at their public schools, two at our English academy (1 foreign and 1 Korean), and at least one for each of the other academies they attend.

All of these teachers give them homework.

So, being the nice guy that I am, I try not to give them too much; they seldom complain about homework, and I respect them for that.

I don't think the amount of homework they have to do is necessarily good, or, to put it another way, it helps them learn and keeps them from watching too much tv (they simply don't have the time), but I think it stifles their creativity and limits extra-curricular activities.

Anyway, I try to be fair.

With about 5 minutes to go until the end of a class (50 min.), I tell them to get out their homework sheets and I prepare to write the homework on the whiteboard for them to copy.

It usually looks something like this (for a 3rd to 6th grade class):

  LG SB 13 LR 3X
  WB 11
  NB SB 13 B. W1X
  ES p. 6

That translates as:

  Let's Go Student Book page 13 Listen/Repeat 3 times
  Let's Go Workbook Page 11 (do)
  In your notebook, write exercise B. on page 13 from the student book 1 time
  English Skills workbook page 6 (do)

Yesterday, when I was about to start writing homework on the whiteboard, one student began to tell the others what I was going to write, just for fun (this happens on a weekly basis in several classes, and I have learned to play along) . . . "Teacher, Let's Go page 10, and um, workbook page 9 . . . no, page 8, and . . ."

It so happened that I had forgotten to write down their notebook homework, and so would not have assigned it, but when he was speaking he reminded me to do so.  Thus, they got more homework than they would have.  I had a hard time not laughing about it.

In another class, a student began to list the homework as I was writing it, only he jokingly said, "Write 100 times".

I turned around and said, straight-faced, "100 times?  Ok." and I wrote W100X on the board.

The other students in the class were horrified and said, "Teacher, no!  Please!  Only him!  Please teacher!"

Again, rather funny, at least for me.  They sometimes do not know when I am joking, and I like to play off of that uncertainty.