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Why bother doing homework? Does your instructor even grade it? Didn’t you already do all this stuff in class?

In my last post I mentioned how much you are surrounded by a target language when you are studying abroad. It’s everywhere. Here at home, you get just a few hours a week of the language in class. You need a bit more just to start to pick it up. Homework keeps the language fresh in your mind, and helps you to focus on a very specific part of the language. And most instructors realize that homework is not fun, so we bribe you with points.

However, we are all aware that not everybody puts a lot of effort into homework. Some textbooks and workbooks have the answers in the back, there are lots of online translators, and then there’s the old trick of paying someone to do it for you. It’s in nobody’s best interest to give you points for something that you didn’t really do.

I had a French professor who assigned workbook pages, but told us that we had to correct our own work using a pen in a different color. She graded us on having all of the exercises completed and having the marks to show that we had corrected them ourselves.

In my classes, students get points for turning in workbook exercises, as long as they are done correctly (no writing “whatever” over and over again). I figure that even if they copied the answers, that will at least give them some practice. Is that cynical or realistic? I don’t know, but at least I get everyone’s homework.