Checking Homework in ESL Classes

Do you remember when you did homework, turned it into the teacher for correction, and got it back with a grade (and maybe not too much red ink)?

That style of teacher-centered homework-checking is actually one of the reasons that I left my position as a university English instructor.  There were so many essays to grade, and so many corrections to make (and the time involved!), yet I felt as though, ultimately, I was not doing much to improve my students' skills.

What would you do if you received back an essay with a grade and a lot of corrections?  Look at the grade and ignore the corrections and most of the comments, right?

Our English academy is working to involve students in the homework checking process.  It's not a fine art, and always varies class-to-class, but the model shows great improvements upon the teacher-centered one.

We have been teaching students to use classroom language such as:

  "What is the answer for question number 1?"
  "The answer is What is he doing?  He is reading a book."

The students works in pairs.  They exchange workbooks (or notebooks, etc.), and talk to each other.  They use a colored pen or pencil to check each other's homework.  The teacher circulates to see that the students are not missing any significant details.

There seems to be so much more language use and practice happening with this student-centered model, and my students are happy to do it.  It is a more active and engaging process than lining up before the teacher's desk to have their homework checked (though I still sometimes do that too).

My vocabulary quizzes (I am doing many more this semester than before), out of necessity, have to be student-graded; I require them to write both the English word and the Korean word, and, since my Korean language skills are not up to checking the quizzes myself, the students change papers and do the checking while I manage the process.  If there is a dispute over an answer they talk to each other (one of the few times they are allowed to use Korean in the classroom), and if that isn't satisfactory then I bring in a Korean teacher/staff person.  It took me a long time (years) to become comfortable with this process, as I have to place a lot of trust in my students, but, well, fair is fair, they put a lot of trust in me also.

I have a ways to go with some classes, but the last one that I taught tonight completely gave me faith.  They had to check 3 different homework assignments.  I introduced each one, told them briefly how to check it with their partner, and then let them do it.  They were great!  (Oops!  I had intended to give them each a piece of candy as a reward, but I forgot.) Did I mention that I did very little work other than supervising?

One slight problem that I have encountered is that some students, when checking their partner's workbook, for example, will spend a minute or two drawing a cute picture with "Good Job!" attached to it.  I tell them the class is not an art class, and one star is enough, but if that is the biggest of my homework problems then I am willing to put up with it.