• About Me
  • My TpT Shop
  • My BOOM Shop
Rike Neville

Rike Neville

  • TpT Shop
  • Boom Shop
  • Grammar
  • Speaking
  • Pronunciation
  • Vocabulary
  • Reading & Writing
  • Teaching Tips
You are here: Home / Teaching Tips / How to Stop Homework from Devouring Your Time

September 10, 2017 · 3 Comments

How to Stop Homework from Devouring Your Time

Teaching Tips

  • Share
  • Tweet
How to Stop Homework from Devouring Your Time - Teaching ESL - RikeNeville.com

Stacks of homework papers used to sit on my table, glaring at me rather menacingly.  A good teacher would have already graded all that homework, right?  When we chose to become teachers, we forfeited the right to a life outside the classroom, right? 

Whether planning a lesson or a homework assignment, we spend hours mapping out everything that could possibly happen, be asked, be misunderstood, and how all of that might affect our students emotionally and intellectually.  We take into consideration cultural differences and age gaps.  When you finish, you’ve created the perfect seating chart for a wedding.  So, it’s understandable that after we’ve devoted part of our lives to creating this vision of how we want everything to go, we want to stick to it.

But what if it’s not working?

homework

Article Contents

  • Consider yourself, not just your students.
  • What if less homework could mean more time and more learning?
  • Don’t fix what isn’t broken.
  • Read more teaching tips!

Consider yourself, not just your students.

If the best for them is destroying you, is it really the best? Last term, I had several brand-new students along with students who had been here for a while and were somewhat disinclined to do homework. 

I wanted to ensure that they’d use at least a little English after classes were over.  I also knew that for a foundations level student who had just completed four and half hours of intensive study, having homework on top of that would probably be overwhelming.  Plus, there were those students who outright told me, “I don’t do homework.”

I spent hours thinking up interesting and off-beat assignments such as, “Go to Pops and make a video of yourself ordering something to drink.”  I even had them riding a Ferris wheel, interviewing people on a local college campus, and taking selfies with outdoor art all over downtown Edmond. 

They LOVED it.  Everyone was doing the homework—but it wasn’t working for me.  Trying to come up with fresh ideas and keeping up with the submitted videos and photos exhausted me.

Teachers can become their own victims out of service to their students, but who does that serve?

What if less homework could mean more time and more learning?

While in the beginning, I loved creating these alternative homework assignments, they quickly turned into drudgery.  I decided to go back to regular, short, traditional homework assignments, but with a twist:  they were optional!  I reasoned that students who truly wanted to get ahead would do them, and as for those who were never going to do them, well, you can lead a horse to water, right?

However, I also tied this into an attendance/tardiness issue with my higher-level students.  I told everyone that they had two choices:  do the assignment OR come to class on time.  (Yes, we discussed what “on time” means in the USA.)  Either way, they’d get their points.

Attendance suddenly became much less of an issue, and even if they weren’t exactly on time, a few minutes late beat 40 minutes late every time!  This meant that we could cover more during classes, and students weren’t lost because of missed class time—a total win-win for me and the students.

Don’t fix what isn’t broken.

Don’t fix what isn’t broken, but if it’s broken? It’s time for a replacement. Take another look at your class policies.  Which ones are not sparking any joy? 

Re-think what your goal is.  Can you find a different way to meet that goal, or is there another goal you could focus on instead? 

Are any of your policies creating MORE work for you?  We all have mandates we must follow and school policies that are sometimes inflexible.  I’m not talking about those. I’m talking about the above and beyond that we seemingly just can’t stop ourselves from doing. We do a massive disservice to ourselves when we continually try to make something work just because it’s a great idea in theory. 

If your students did that to themselves, you’d be counseling them.  Be just as kind to yourself as you are to your students.

Read more teaching tips!

  • Teachers: Stop Martyring Yourselves!
  • Try this Ultimate Classroom Management Trick in Your Mixed-Ability Adult ESL Classes
  • 3 Reasons to Spend as Little as Possible on Your Classroom
  • 3 Ideas for Inspiring Shared Gratitude in the Classroom
  • Study Habits: Supercharge Their Effectiveness with One Question & One Strategy
  • 3 Biggest Myths about Digital Devices in the Classroom

Visit my TpT store or my BOOM store to get adult ESL resources that will give you your life back. Your time should be your own.

Join the Newsletter!

Previous Post: « 3 Ideas for Inspiring Shared Gratitude in the Classroom
Next Post: How to Create Unlimited Adult ESL Games with Jenga »

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Arthur says

    May 2, 2018 at 7:50 am

    Best of all, if there is an opportunity to leave work in the classroom. That is, after returning home to give time to the family and not to check homework. I'm afraid many agree, being a teacher is giving almost all free time to students. I say this as my mother teaches in high school. And I always felt some discomfort in relation to her work, maybe I was even jealous a bit. Many practices
    have a meaningful impact on the education system, and I believe that it is precisely the effectiveness of the education system should rise. The more effective the training system, the less time it will take for both the teacher and the student to have an excellent indicator …
    But we can think about this endlessly …

    Reply
  2. Rike Neville says

    September 29, 2017 at 12:06 am

    ^_^ Thank you so much for your kind words! I would love to hear what you come up with to make this work for your high school classes. I hope you'll check back in and leave an update. Somehow I think that your students might not put up too much of a fuss if you decide to decrease your workload by decreasing theirs. 🙂

    Reply
  3. Unknown says

    September 28, 2017 at 3:45 am

    You make me laugh – with a flare of the pen you cut to the chase! It is refreshing to hear what thoughts rumble through my mind – also thought by others. I have to think a little deeper how to apply this to my high school classes, but you have me thinking 🙂

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Primary Sidebar

Search This Site

Recent Posts

  • Practical Pet-Themed Activities for Adult ESL Classes: Tips and Ideas
  • Teaching The Present Progressive Tense: Because the Past Tense is So Yesterday
  • Lights, Camera, English! 4 Engaging Movie-Based Activities for Adult ESL Learners
  • Clothing Vocabulary: 3 Important Reasons to Dress up Your Adult ESL Lessons
  • Exploring Cultural Differences in Adult ESL Classrooms: Why it Matters

Browse Categories

  • Privacy Policy
  • Contact Me
  • TpT Shop
  • BOOM Shop

Copyright 2021 Rike Neville.