SESSION 26: EXERCISES FOR DISCUSSION AND FINAL TASK
2. EXERCISES FOR DISCUSSION:
2.1 LEARNING: How best can kids under the age of 12 learn? State the pros and cons of the following:
- homework
- The Internet
- parents
- other kids
- school lessons
- playing
2.2 SUBJECTS: Which did you best like at school and why? Was it because of the teacher you had? Was it because of the way the subject was taught? Rank these from best to worst:
- English
- Maths
- Literature
- History and Geography
- Physical education
- Science
- Other...
2.3 DISCUSSION: HERE ARE SOME QUESTIONS AND STATEMENTS WHICH YOU CAN THINK ABOUT AND TRY ASKING YOURSELF BEFORE YOU COME TO OUR DISCUSSION ON WEDNESDAY:
a) What springs to mind when you hear the word ‘homework’?
b) How useful do you think homework is?
c) What did you think of doing homework when you were younger?
d) What kind of English homework do you do now and how effective is it?
e) Do you agree with the research that says homework for elementary school students has little benefit?
f) Why do you think homework would have so little effect on grades and level?
g) Do you think homework can help kids become self-directed?
h) Was there any homework you liked doing?
i) Could children learn the same without doing home?
j) What three adjectives would you use to describe homework?
k) Do you think French parents are right to boycott homework?
l) Do you think children would be better off reading a book than doing homework?
m) Do you think it’s true that if children do not succeed in doing an exercise at school, that they’re unlikely to do so at home?
n) What do you think children would feel about a homework ban?
o) How better could children spend their time if they didn’t have homework?
p) Do you think parents doing homework with their children causes friction in the family?
q) Would you choose to have or not have homework? (Why?)
r) What questions would you like to ask professor Richard Walker?
PREPARING A DISCUSSION IS FUNDAMENTAL:
THIS MUST BE DONE IN TWO DIRECTIONS:
FIRST, YOU NEED TO LEARN NEW VOCABULARY AND EXPRESSIONS THAT YOU WILL HAVE TO USE FOR THE DISCUSSION.
SECONDLY, YOU HAVE TO PREPARE THE TOPIC BY LOOKING UP INFORMATION IN THE INTERNET, BOOKS, ENCYCLOPAEDIAS.
THIS WAY YOU WILL FEEL MUCH MORE CONFIDENT AND AT THE SAME TIME YOU WILL HAVE MUCH MORE TO TALK ABOUT IN THE ORAL SESSION.
FINAL TASK:
HERE IS ONE FINAL TASK THAT YOU MAY DO IN ORDER TO COVER THE FOUR SKILLS YOU SHOULD FOCUS ON WHEN LEARNING A LANGUAGE: LISTENING, READING, SPEAKING AND WRITING.
Write a composition and leave it in the blog as a comment to Session 26, I will edit it in the blog so that everybody can learn from other people´s opinions. Choose one of these two options:
- Homework for children under the age of 12 is not beneficial. Express your opinion.
- Writer a letter to Professor Richard Walker telling him what you think about homework.
In today’s world, everybody knows how important education is for people’s future and the fact that we keep learning from we are born to we pass away, shows us the importance of this fact. So we can wonder if we should encourage our children to organize their lives in order to get as knowledge as possible or should not-
ReplyDeleteWe all have been children and we know that at offspring age everybody thinks about spend their times doing funny activities and enjoy time a lot. That is the reason why we want to see our children really happy and without worries but as parents we have a responsibility towards our children’s custom . From the very beginning, children must be taught basic rules of learning process and mainly when they start primary school, they have to retake and develop what they have learnt at school. Thus, they create a habit and they also become self-directed.
On the other hand, there are other kinds of parents who think children only have to study in class with the help of teachers. Despite having a lot free time they do not use it positively but negatively, because these children become lazy, disorganized and in the end they have a lot of problems when they start secondary school and higher levels of studies. As offspring are not used to studying at home, it indicate that their parents have not had a minimal interest in share time with their children helping them to understand new things in different ways.
All in all, in spite of wanting to have happiness in our children’s lives giving them the best we can afford, we also have the duty of giving them the tools and the courage to learn by them to be capable to solve difficult situation in the best way in the future.
Miguel Ruano.
`HOMEWORK FOR CHILDREN UNDER THE AGE OF 12’
ReplyDeleteThe past decade has depicted a great increase in homework demands but it is only recently that the influence on student outcomes has been addressed so it is in this context that teachers, parents and students have begun to question the purpose of homework as well as its effect on student’s fulfilments. Hence, it is very important to point out many reasons to support the theory that any time spent on homework shows more benefits than drawbacks.
Firstly, it is necessary to keep in mind that cultural values are usually established before the age of 10, but we are rarely conscious of them. In fact, the human-being needs a good guidance and discipline from the very moment is born, not only to enhance subject skills but also to build responsibilities and confidence as well as to improve the cultural intelligence quota which will be required in the future.
Another point to mention is that the assignment given by teacher after school helps children to learn with interest and materialize the subject studied at school being absolutely positive to develop their level of concentration and to acquire confidence in their mind which can be the key to have a strengthened personality and to cope with the daily commitments successfully, thing that is more complicated as we grow older.
Finally, there is no doubt that by studying at least half an hour per day at home, children of all ages and considering their mental ability, can apply their knowledge and enhance them, fix mistakes and improve in their weaknesses because there is no achievements without effort.
Personally, I think that the children’s motivation depend on their parent’s support and involvement, in the sense that homework, above all in immature age , should not be treated as a punishment but more as a play giving them in the right quantity and proportion.
Sometimes we tend to consider a unique system for everyone or every place without taking into account that each person is different, even each period of time is not the same and useful methods in the past cannot be valid nowadays.
ReplyDeleteEducation must be analysed as a global question because the success of the student depends on a whole and not to focus in homework, because latter is just a small part of this topic.
Following that line, maybe it would be interesting and practical to distribute the time a pupil dedicate to study, both at school and at home, in order to take the most advantage from him, avoiding a stressful agenda with a lot of activities.
Of course the time a student need to spend doing homework must be growing little by little when he/she gets older, but in my opinion work at school is the most valuable and our educational system must keep a certain prevalence in comparison with homework.
Nowadays between Education system and parents are achieving that children be less responsible and they are reducing children´s capability to understand, memorize and learn.
ReplyDeleteIt is essential that the sooner the better, children learn to work by themselves and to be responsible of their homework.
The simple fact of doing homework helps children to learn how schedule their time, not only they learn about subjects such as Maths, Language or Phisics , but also they acquire different knowledge important in their lives, they learn to be responsible and take care of their obligations.
Children must learn from early age how they had to study and create a habit , in my opinion, is more difficult that 12 years old child acquires a study habit than if he or she is educated from the begining when he or she is 5 or 6 years old. If you are not used to studying and spend many hours doing homework is impossible begin it when you are 12 years old.
In addition to that, homework is the only way that a teacher can know,more or less, if a pupil works or not, because in class some times it is impossible,
If a teacher has 30 children in class is very difficult to control that everyone are paying attention or understanding the explanation.
And now I wondered, obviously, If there are not homework, there will not be exams. How you can evaluated pupils?
In conclusion, our Education System is each time worse. Children learn less and are less trained to the Future.