ESL students and homework

Introduction

It is a fact of school life for ESL students that they generally have to work harder to complete a piece of homework than native speakers. A piece of science homework that is completed by a British or American student in 30 minutes may take an ESL student twice that time or even longer.

In this way ESL students can easily spend much more than the 1-2 hours per day set as a reasonable amount of homework time for a typical middle-schooler. And this of course means that there is less time for them to participate in the many afternoon sporting or artistic activities on offer at the school or in their local communities.

Alternatively, ESL students do take part in these activities as well as spending a lot of time on homework. But then they go to bed late and are tired in school the next day.

It is a fact of school life for ESL students that they generally have to work harder to complete a piece of homework than native speakers.

General comments

There is no easy advice to give here. The school can suggest a reasonable maximum amount of time to spend on homework and stress the importance of children participating in non-academic afternoon activities. But the way children use their time after school and at the weekends is a matter for each family to decide.

Some parents allow their children to have a lot of free time and to make their own decisions how to use it. Other parents prefer their children to be busy with lots of school learning and creative or sporting activities.

Whatever choice is made by parents, it is important that the time that the child actually spends on homework is useful. It is unfortunate if the recommended two hours doesn't actually result in much learning or understanding.

In order to ensure that homework is worthwhile it is important to focus less on the homework product and more on the homework process.

A focus on product

Imagine that the homework assignment is to write a short report on an example of environmental pollution, including its causes, its effects and the possible solutions. The product is the piece of writing that the student gives to the teacher.

If the product has been researched and written with significant help from the parents or a private tutor, then it is likely to be good and to get a good grade. But the process of producing it may not have required much cognitive effort from the student. And she may not have learned very much about the topic.

In order to ensure that homework is worthwhile it is important to focus less on the homework product and more on the homework process.

A focus on process

An example of the process-focused approach to the same homework assignment could look like this:

The student has a brief discussion about the homework with a parent, in the mother tongue. In this way she can make sure that she understands the assignment and knows in broad terms how to do it. The student is then left alone to produce the answer as best she can, although she can request quick help if she gets stuck.

Of course, the finished product may not be in clear and accurate English. But this is not expected of ESL students, otherwise they wouldn't need to be in ESL! However, work produced by the ESL student in this way is not only more profitable for her, it also provides much more useful information to her teachers.

The ESL teacher can see in which areas the student most needs help in expressing herself clearly and accurately. And the subject teacher can determine more easily what the student has and has not understood of the work of previous lessons.

With this knowledge her teachers can more effectively help her to improve both in English and in the subject area.

Unproductive process

The discussion above makes it clear that a focus on process is generally better than a focus on product. But it is important to be aware that some process activities are themselves not helpful. Following is an example of an unhelpful a process activity.

Suppose the student has to read a a newspaper article written at the time of the American Revolution and state the main purpose of the article. She could struggle for an hour or more using her dictionary to look up every new word. But she may end up understanding little of the contents of the piece and feel very frustrated.

Alternatively, she could spend some time reading in an encyclopaedia or history book of the period, in her language, to get a little background knowledge. She could discuss what she has learned with her parents. Then she can read through the original English article, looking up a few words that seem to be of particular importance.

In this way, the purpose of the article (i.e. the homework task) should become clear. And the time she spends on the task will have been more profitable (the process), whatever the quality of the answer itself (the product).

... it is also important that your child does not regularly experience stress or tiredness due to too much or too difficult homework.

Final advice

In summary, it is important that the time spent on homework results in learning and understanding. But it is also important that your child does not regularly experience stress or tiredness due to too much or too difficult homework.

If you feel that this is the case, you may wish to contact your child's ESL teacher. He can increase the amount of subject help for your child in ESL lessons. Alternatively, he can consult the subject teacher with a view to temporarily modulating the homework tasks, for example by reducing the minimum length of a piece of writing.

If the stress and tiredness persist, it would be a good idea to contact your child's counselor.

Further reading

Here you can read advice to students on how to get good grades.

And this page advises parents who are considering private tuition for ESL students.

Here is a brief video on the same topic.