LETTING STUDENTS
CHOOSE THEIR OWN HOMEWORK
Karen Fedderholdt,
Toyama University, Japan
Introduction
This paper describes a 5-week/5-lesson period in which thirty 2nd year and
ten 3rd year English Major undergraduate students at a university in Japan
could choose for themselves what to do for homework. The concept was
called Free Choice Homework (FCH). This was the first time I had organized
this, and I felt it would be a good opportunity to see a) whether and how
students had benefited from being guided towards self-directed learning
and receiving language learning strategy (LLS) training, and b) how I could
improve my guidance in these areas. The rationale was that had they benefited,
they would choose and do the homework responsibly using a variety of LLS.
Before continuing, however, I need to explain more about the students' EFL
situation.
Teaching Situation: Constraints
At no point during their 4-year BA course are students required to
take oral English. Further, the classes held are only for 2nd and 3rd year
students. The number of hours available is very small, further eroded by
national holidays, sports days, etc. Since there is no self-access
centre to compensate for these constraints, I feel it is essential that
students realize that they will have to become competent in English by themselves,
outside class. Consequently, they are guided towards cultivating the responsibility
necessary for self-directed learning as well as using the tools, in the
form of LLS. These are unfamiliar concepts and practices for the students.
Their six years at high school are spent in a tightly controlled teacher-centred
environments during which they are required to absorb vast amounts of facts
in order to pass the all-important university entrance examinations. Therefore,
the first issue is to bring about a change of mind-set.
Standard Solutions
To accomplish this change, the students are taught a wide variety of metacognitive,
cognitive, compensation, social and affective LLS. Especially there is focus
on metacognitive strategies to help them deal with time-management
and goal-setting issues as well as self-monitoring and evaluating
aspects of self-directed learning. All the above areas are incorporated
in our lessons and in homework and, as this paper focuses on the latter,
I will give some examples of some typical assignments students work with
during the courses.
Typical Activities
First, they have to accomplish one of the following, given as examples:
1. Find information on the Internet on a topic of their own choice.
2. Locate and use a spoken text they are interested in on video, DVD, radio
or TV.
3. Read a text of their own choice.
4. Enter a chat room on the Internet and 'chat' in English.
Secondly, they have to discuss the contents of their work with their group
and then present it to the class. The other students have been advised to
interrupt to ask for the meaning of words they do not know, request the
speaker to repeat or to speak more slowly, etc.
Thirdly, students would identify and describe the LLS they had used.
Going Beyond the Typical: FCH
Although these activities gave students a certain amount of freedom, I felt
that a natural progression would be for them to choose for themselves whatever
they wanted to do in any skill. Also, as mentioned, I wanted to see if
consciousness raising in connection with own responsibility in learning,
self-directed learning and LLS training was having any effect. Consequently,
I simply told students that they were about to begin a series of Free Choice
Homework weeks and that they could do anything they wanted for homework.
I deliberately, and in retrospect I think maybe unfairly, did not give them
any guidelines. My expectations, or hopes, were that:
1. Students
would choose to work on areas which a) interested them, and/or b) which
they found problematic.
2. They would spend approximately 3 x 30 minutes weekly on the FCH.
3. They would use a variety of metacognitive and other LLS.
4. They would be able to report adequately to the class what they had done.
5. They would be able to talk about what they had learnt.
Results
Week 1. Many students had 'forgotten' to do their homework and several
students had done as little as possible. It seemed that the FCH had been
taken as an invitation to not make an effort! Some of the best students
had done their work well in the sense of being able to present what they
had done in a good way. However, when I asked students why they had chosen
to do what they had done, the answers were very vague and it seemed that
no one had really thought about this. Students were then asked what they
were most interested in with regard to English and what were their weak
spots. In most cases when these were compared with their FCH, there was
no alignment. I suggested that maybe their interests and problems might
be taken into consideration for next week`s FCH. Students who had not done
their homework or not made much of an effort were reminded about responsibility
in learning and that homework was an invitation to them to, for example,
think about areas they needed to improve, set goals for what they wanted
to learn and use strategies to accomplish what they wanted to succeed in.
We also talked about time management and whether they felt they were spending
enough time on their homework.
Week 2. Most students had done their FCH in areas they were either interested
or had problems in. This meant that most had focused on listening
tasks or 'chatting' on the Internet. Some, however, had concentrated on
reading and one had kept a diary to help improve writing. After each student
had presented her work, they were asked what they had learnt. None of the
students were able to answer this well. In fact they seemed surprised at
the question. It seemed that they had done the homework for the sake of
doing it, rather than having learning as the goal.
Week 3. Students were managing their FCH better. They were more focussed
on improving specific weak points and spending longer on homework.
Most seemed to do FCH 2 or 3 times weekly. Various LLS were being
used. The weaker students were still lagging behind somewhat. The area all
students had difficulty with was being able to state clearly what they had
learnt or become better at.
Weeks 4 and 5. Students were becoming not only better at managing most
areas and they had - with few exceptions - clearly become much more enthusiastic
about this way of doing homework. Many of them were spending longer on it
and becoming more inventive in what they were doing as well as using a wide
variety of LLS. Example: One student who participated in voice mail
sessions wanted to check what she was actually saying. Therefore, she recorded
her input and then afterwards transcribed what she had said. She went though
it and found areas where her grammar could be improved, where she had repeated
herself, used wrong vocabulary, etc. Then, when she logged on the next time,
she made a conscious effort not to repeat her mistakes.
FCH Upgrade
From this piloting of FCH, I learnt that I could introduce FCH sooner in
the course and, possibly, as time is so short, instead of letting students
find their own way, I should guide them more at the beginning.