Q. I was looking at one of your books that talked about a daily quick quiz. Can you tell me what you do for absent students to make up the quiz that is easy to manage?
A. Thanks for your question. The purpose of the quizzes is to see if the kid was listening that day. So if they are not there in class they cannot possibly take the quiz.
In general, my entire approach is based on no planning and no work for me. So I just don’t count the grade either way. No harm no foul. I have a feature in my grade book where an x is a no count.
However, this is only in the case of excused absences. If an absence is unexcused, I give them the zero.
But there is a problem. Amidst everything else we have to do, do we really have to keep up with the lists coming from attendance as to whether they are excused or not?
No. What I do is put all zeros for all absent kids and if they want the zero changed bc their absence is in fact excused, then they have to show me where that is true.
It’s still a hassle, but that is how school works, to be one big hassle. But when I put all zeros in the grade book and the kids have to tell me that it was in fact excused, it is a lot less work for me and in general when I do it that way absences tend to go down.
By the way, I don’t give the quizzes daily. Just when I need grades. And I give up to three quizzes a day if the class is not making good efforts to listen.
To add one more thing: If the research tells us that comprehensible input is the only way a person can learn a language, then the entire point is for us to just get as much CI as we can into the kids’ heads during class, where they are focusing on the message and not the language, or other busywork.
In the past, we used to think that they had to do a certain amount of “work”, studying, memorizing, being tested and yes that is how school works, but not for languages, if we are to be bold and really align with the research as well as the Communication standard.
So it just occurred to me how your question really highlights the difference between “doing work” vs. just hearing the language and letting it be absorbed into the growing language system at a different rate in each different child in sleep that night after hearing as much input (listening and reading) in class that day.
It’s not about what output (writing and speaking) that our students can do with the language (until output emerges in level 3 at the earliest). Our students can’t think their way to a language. They just have to hear and enjoy it as much as possible. Then the magic happens, with no or only a little work involved for them or us, really.
It’s time for us to be free of all the planning and work and conflict and just relax and enjoy our jobs.