Recognizing that 1) there’s really nothing new under the sun and 2) many of you are newer teachers who are just meeting me, I’m embarking on a journey to update some of my work that teachers have found more helpful over the years. Sometimes that involves posting a brief tip on social media and/or making an out-of-date post private.
One of the topics teachers most benefited from on Musicuentos was certainly homework choice. Are you wondering how you can assign achievable, meaningful homework that allows for student voice and furthers proficiency goals? Read on!
How’s homework going?
If you’ve known me long, you know I’m not a fan of bandwagons. I prefer to wait in the background and quietly watch to see if the app gets killed, the research turns out to be negative, and so on. Sometimes, though, what appears to be a bandwagon turns into something bigger. Something that changes the face of education. Revolutionizing the concept of homework is one of these for me.
As a general rule, I’m not a fan of homework at all. The more years I spend homeschooling my children, the more appalled I am that we ever thought 7 hours a day wasn’t enough time to get a proper education.
The more I watch my local school district flounder over everything from chronic absenteeism to assessment issues to bus drivers quitting over student behavior, the more I want to shout from the rooftops,
WHERE ARE THE PARENTS?
Much of what’s wrong with our education system could be vastly improved with some brave parenting, but in return, teachers need to give parents time for brave parenting.
The research is rock solid: the more quality time children spend with parents, the higher outcomes we see across their whole lives.
Curious to know more? Read The Homework Myth.
Okay, enough of that soapbox. What if you’re required to assign homework? What about the fact that we don’t have time in class to expose them to enough of the target language? What about the extra activities that will spark that love of the target culture in them?
Enter homework choice.
Years ago, after I ditched the textbook, I was faced with a requirement for “daily grades” (homework) but no ideas for what to assign. So, I came up with a list of choices. We called it “Choose your aventura.” I shared it. Others ran with it, they added theirs. Many of us saw great success inspiring kids to interact with language outside of the classroom by using homework choice lists.
Here’s the system in a nutshell.
- Develop a list of ways learners can interact with the target language outside the classroom.
- Decide whether to classify options on a point system. That is, easier options would be 1 point, and the hardest ones might be 3 or 4.
- Decide whether to require a certain number of points per week.
- Give a way for learners to report their activity, like a reflection chart to fill out or a post to make on your online platform.
- Count the activity as a homework grade.
What’s the problem?
Glad you asked. Some of our old choices don’t exist anymore. For example, near the beginning of Musicuentos, I did a post suggesting Nickelodeon’s Spanish-language offering “Mundonick.” But Mundonick died years ago. As I slowly clean up 11 years of blog, I find these out-of-date issues and now know to direct you to Nickelodeon en Español’s YouTube channel.
Hanging out on Facebook? Join me there.
I thought about deleting or hiding my old posts about homework choice, but some of you have linked to them. So, I’ve simply added a link to this post at the top of each.
Here’s the work I shared over the years, in reverse order:
- 2016: Nine homework choice systems
- 2015: Homework choice for elementary learners
- 2015: Homework choices for very early novices
- 2014: Putting homework in their hands: Sample systems
- 2013: Homework choice, updated
- 2013: A sample homework report from a student
- 2013: Add more music to homework choices
- 2012: More student choice in homework
- 2011: The post that started it all: It’s time for them to use their time
The question it, how can I best aggregate the options and lessons we collectively amassed over the years on this topic? I think the answer is an old-school Google Doc. That way, I can change and update it as time goes on and things go out of date. It won’t be fancy, but it’ll be useful, and that’s more important. Sorry, formatting it pretty will be up to you!
Scroll down for a list of contributors who have helped me over the years re: homework choice, but without further ado, enjoy:
The Ultimate List of Homework Options for Spanish Teachers.
Every link has been tested for 2025 (and I can tell you, a lot of them were broken)! For resources that went away, I did my best to find a replacement
– like, did you know LyricsTraining is now an app called LingoClip?!
and while combing my amigos‘ old posts, I discovered ideas I hadn’t seen before or was inspired to tweak for this purpose
– like, of course build a fantasy sports team with names and descriptions of players from Spanish-speaking countries?!
I hope you’ll love it. Please share back what you create from it!
Three things before I go. First, if you teach a different language and are inspired to create something similar for your colleagues, will you share it with me so I can spread the good resources around?
Second, remember that these things only have value if they do one of two things:
1) directly improve learner proficiency, and/or
2) inspire learners to engage the target language culture/speakers on their own so they live a lifetime of improving their own proficiency.
Last but not least, this is included at the end of the document but I want to post here that I’m also grateful to the following teachers for their contributions: Sharon Birch, Bethanie Carlson-Drew, Laura Sexton, Kara Jacobs, Pilar Munday, Sharon Birch, Kara Parker, Megan Johnson-Smith, and Noah Geisel.
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