We’re celebrating the publication of Penny Ur’s book 100 Teaching Tips, from our Cambridge Handbook for Language Teachers series. Here, we’re sharing with you two of the book’s 100 hands-on tips across 19 different areas of classroom teaching, based on Penny’s comprehensive teaching experience in ELT over the past 40 years.
1. Don’t give homework at the end
- If you know you have a homework assignment to give, explain it sometime in the middle of the lesson and make sure students have noted it down. Don’t leave it until the last minute.
In most lessons I’ve observed, the teacher gives the homework last thing before the end of the lesson. It seems to be a conventional routine in lessons in all subjects, not just English. I suppose there’s a kind of logic to it: we’ve finished the lesson, the next thing you’ll do is homework, so let’s give it when the lesson is over.
But in fact it’s not a good idea, for various reasons. Attention is likely in general to be lower at the end of the session. Students may be packing up and not listening to you; you may not have enough time to explain properly; and the overall message is likely to be ‘homework is an afterthought, not so important’. So it’s much better to give it earlier. In general, give the homework immediately after the lesson component that it relates to: for example, comprehension work on a text you’ve been reading. Then you aren’t rushed, can explain fully and answer questions about it, and students have time to write it down. If you note it at the side of the board as you explain, then you can use this note as the basis for a brief reminder before closing the lesson later.
Of course, there may be exceptions (as with any of the tips in this book!). For example, the activity that is the basis for the homework might have come at the end of the lesson anyway. Or the whole lesson might have been taken up with one ongoing activity, with no gap when you could have given homework earlier.
2. Prepare homework-giving in advance
- It’s not enough just to note down in advance what homework you are going to assign; you need to think about how you’re going to give it, and at what point in the lesson.
Too often I’ve seen homework given as a sort of afterthought, when students know it’s the end of the lesson, are packing up, and don’t really pay attention to what the teacher is saying.
You need to plan, and allow several minutes of lesson time, for the following:
- Giving clear instructions. It may be necessary, in beginner classes, to give these in the students’ mother tongue, if you know it, in order to be quite certain that they understand. Another useful strategy is to perform a sample of the ‘kind of thing’ you are asking them to do with volunteer students, in order to clarify. For example, do one or two of the items of the exercise, or write a elicit a sentence or two of a written assignment.
- Writing up the homework on the board as well as just giving oral instructions. Doing this makes the assignment clearer, and also enables you to come back at the end of the lesson and remind students about it, pointing to the note on the board.
- Giving students the opportunity to ask questions, in order to clarify anything that isn’t clear to them.
- Telling them why you are giving it. It’s important for students to be aware what the learning purpose is: that it’s not just given arbitrarily for the sake of giving homework!
- Getting students to write down the assignment in their notebooks, including the date when it is due.
- Optionally, giving them time to start doing it in class.
Watch back our interview with Penny and review the book 100 Teaching Tips to learn more.