7 metodika indd

Using Mother Tongue

The authors of Teens’ English believe that English is best learned through English so we expect the teacher to use English as much as possible in the classroom.

Of course there are some instances where pupils will need explanation or clarification in their mother tongue. However, we hope that you will try to resist the temptation to translate everything. Research has shown that pupils learn more effectively if they are encouraged to work out meaning for themselves.

Checking homework

Every experienced teacher has his/her own routine for how to correct homework.

Here are some hints for inexperienced teachers.

How?

There are several ways of checking homework.

a Traditional method The teacher takes the children’s works and tries to correct every single mistake.

b Non-traditional method The teacher uses two coloured pencils or pens for checking.

Green colour - warning.

When a pupil makes a mistake for the first time, you underline it with the green pen. Here pupils should work on the mistake made.

Red colour - bad.

When a pupil makes the same mistake in many exercises you underline it with red pen. Here pupils should really work hard on the mistake made.

You can correct the mistakes yourself but it is better to give the pupils a chance to do it themselves. You can help your pupils correct their own mistakes by providing the following symbols in the margin:

Gr - grammar mistake, Sp - wrong spelling, WO - word order mistake, P - punctuation.

c Self-checking method Pupils check their own work following a given model (for example the teacher asks pupils and writes the correct answers on the board.)

d Inter-checking method The teacher asks pupils to swap their work and correct any mistakes following a model which they are given.
When?

a While pupils are doing classwork activities, you can go round and quickly and look at their homework. It is a good idea to ask pupils to have two exercise

books. One for classwork and one for homework.

b You can assess homework during the Project lesson.

c You can take pupils’ exercise books home to assess.
It is essential to collect pupils’ work because:

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  It is only through doing homework to supplement the three lessons a week that pupils will make good progress. If you do not check the homework, pupils will stop doing it.
  
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  Pupils will make mistakes in their homework as they experiment with the new things they have learned. Every mistake is a learning opportunity if you help them to find it. If you don’t, they miss the opportunity to learn, and may even learn something wrong!
  
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  You can see the pupil’s progress.
  
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  You can work with the pupil individually.
  
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  You can stimulate your pupils to make displays, competitions, etc.
  
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  It will help you to work with pupils’ parents.