The last day of school before Winter Break was Friday, December 18. At the beginning of the last block of the day, I had a student, with contempt in her voice, ask very loudly, "How come we're the only foreign language class not watching a movie?" To be honest, the idea of a movie had not even entered my mind.
My plans for the class included a review and quiz on the comparison of adjectives, practice with participles, and then a group-effort translation on a neat story involving a werewolf. Werewolves are the "in" beastie right now!
I do know for a fact that a couple of my colleagues were showing a Christmas-themed movie in the target language as an "extended listening exercise." They have that option and that resource. Good for them.
My thoughts were to bring closure to the regular comparison of adjectives and continue to recognize and translate participles in context. The translation of the story was a timely and interesting exercise and provided us with the opportunity to see both comparative and superlative adjectives and participles in context.
I had a plan and I carried it out. In my mind, the students had made an effort to be in school and come to class (the entire class was present!), and I wanted to make their time worthwhile. Oh yeah, my assignment over break was to place the textbook and the notebook in the locker and to enjoy the vacation. After all, it's a break, right?
Showing posts with label homework. Show all posts
Showing posts with label homework. Show all posts
Sunday, December 20, 2009
Sunday, November 29, 2009
Saxum Volvens: Keeping Up the Momentum
We return to school tomorrow after a five days away; before that we had only a two-day week. Needless to say, the students will not be their sharpest when they come into the classroom. What to do?
Keeping up momentum in the classroom is very important, if the teacher wishes to keep the students learning and the material flowing along. The best way to push that stone on which moss is beginning to grow is the catch their attention with something interesting and then ease into a review of the last subject covered. Then slip something new and tie the two together.
My plan? I found a couple interesting clips from YouTube/eClassics... we'll start there.
As a general rule, I do not give homework over breaks from school. I know from experience as a teacher and a parent that many other teachers don't feel this way and a five-day break from school is the perfect time to assign essays and reading and worksheets and... Guess what, most of it doesn't even make it out of the backpack until the evening before the big return. What kind of quality work does that promote? At that point, the notion of learning anything is gone and the need to complete the letter, but not the intent, of the assignments take center stage.
This time of year does create issues with momentum. Fall Break, i.e., Thanksgiving, is over and Winter Break, viz. Christmas and the Holidays, will soon be upon us. There will be many a distraction in the next three weeks, then a two-week break, then wintry weather, then exams, then wintry weather... I wonder if Sisyphus is looking for a replacement soon?
Keeping up momentum in the classroom is very important, if the teacher wishes to keep the students learning and the material flowing along. The best way to push that stone on which moss is beginning to grow is the catch their attention with something interesting and then ease into a review of the last subject covered. Then slip something new and tie the two together.
My plan? I found a couple interesting clips from YouTube/eClassics... we'll start there.
As a general rule, I do not give homework over breaks from school. I know from experience as a teacher and a parent that many other teachers don't feel this way and a five-day break from school is the perfect time to assign essays and reading and worksheets and... Guess what, most of it doesn't even make it out of the backpack until the evening before the big return. What kind of quality work does that promote? At that point, the notion of learning anything is gone and the need to complete the letter, but not the intent, of the assignments take center stage.
This time of year does create issues with momentum. Fall Break, i.e., Thanksgiving, is over and Winter Break, viz. Christmas and the Holidays, will soon be upon us. There will be many a distraction in the next three weeks, then a two-week break, then wintry weather, then exams, then wintry weather... I wonder if Sisyphus is looking for a replacement soon?
Tuesday, March 27, 2007
"Doing my Latin homework takes forever!"
A student came to see me after school recently and wanted to know if I had any suggestions for helping her complete her Latin homework assignments -- translation assignments, specifically. She lamented that it was taking her over an hour to "do" her translations and then she still didn't understand what the Latin was saying.
I asked her to tell me exactly what she did and how she did it.
If she was given an assignment of 20 lines to translate from the story (in Ecce Romani II), she said that she copied down every word (even et and sed) in a long list and them looked up every word and wrote the English meaning next to it. After this tedious process she would look over the translation and then try to make sense out of it. She said that she would then become frustrated and usually give up.
I quickly saw the problem in this approach and offered some advice:
1) The problem - She was looking up the words outside of context. By making a list and writing down the meaning (usually the first one listed), she was losing or missing the meaning as it fit with the other words.
2) The other problem - She was looking up every word. I encourage my students to trust themeselves and guess at the meaning based upon the context. If she looks up movere and discovers that it means "to move," she has used valuable time on an item she could have very well anticipated.
3) My solution - Don't write down every word, or any words, for that matter. Read the sentence to yourself (preferably outloud) and then anticipate the meaning. If you need to look up a word (or a few words), do so but choose the meaning that works in context.
She took my advice and discovered that she could shave off over half the time she typically spent on translations and had a better understanding of what the Latin actually meant.
I asked her to tell me exactly what she did and how she did it.
If she was given an assignment of 20 lines to translate from the story (in Ecce Romani II), she said that she copied down every word (even et and sed) in a long list and them looked up every word and wrote the English meaning next to it. After this tedious process she would look over the translation and then try to make sense out of it. She said that she would then become frustrated and usually give up.
I quickly saw the problem in this approach and offered some advice:
1) The problem - She was looking up the words outside of context. By making a list and writing down the meaning (usually the first one listed), she was losing or missing the meaning as it fit with the other words.
2) The other problem - She was looking up every word. I encourage my students to trust themeselves and guess at the meaning based upon the context. If she looks up movere and discovers that it means "to move," she has used valuable time on an item she could have very well anticipated.
3) My solution - Don't write down every word, or any words, for that matter. Read the sentence to yourself (preferably outloud) and then anticipate the meaning. If you need to look up a word (or a few words), do so but choose the meaning that works in context.
She took my advice and discovered that she could shave off over half the time she typically spent on translations and had a better understanding of what the Latin actually meant.
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