CHECKING HOMEWORK WITH A RUNNING DICTATION

 

Shared by Mª Gloria Watson:

I have found this activity to be very useful for checking homework. I have trained my first year ESO students - 14 in the class - to compare workbook homework with their partner whilst waiting for the teacher to arrive. If the teacher is on time then we dive straight into the activity which is as follows.

I put the answers to the homework activity on the wall around the classroom, in this case seven copies because I want the students to do this activity in pairs. Then I divide the students into runners and writers.

Now we are ready to start. The runner runs up to the text on the wall and reads the first answer to him or herself as quickly as possible. He or she then needs to remember the phrase whilst running back to partner who needs to write it down on paper.

I always try to get the runner to whisper the phrase to their partner so as not to disturb the other students. Then the runner becomes the writer until all the phrases or sentences have been whispered to the writer.

Once all this has been done the first pair to finish shout out ¨stop!¨ and everyone stops the running part of the activity.

The next part of the activity involves the teacher projecting a copy of the right answers on the board and students correcting their own homework.

I find this works well especially with this group at the end of a long morning. It also encourages positive cognitive effects of movement, gets them out of their seats and what is more important, it´s fun for all!