Topic 68 Is daily homework necessary? There's much controversy (спор, дебаты ) about the necessity of daily homework for students

There's much controversy (спор, дебаты) about the necessity of daily homework for students. Some say homework is necessary since only practice makes perfect, while others disagree because they believe a student should have the freedom to study whatever in whatever forms just as he/she likes to.

In my opinion, daily homework is necessary for students. First, a teacher could assign homework as a measure for the students to study. A student needs guidance from a teacher because he/she does not have an overall understanding (общее понимание) of the knowledge he is going to study from the teacher. This means, at the beginning, a student could not well plan his/her study, just as a kid who is for the first time in a swimming pool could do nothing but to play with water. A teacher could make a good study plan for him/her, so that he/she could learn efficiently.

Secondly, even when a student has already understand what he/she should do in order to master some skill or knowledge, he/she is still unwilling to do this for the lack of motivation. Hey, do not tell me that you have never been lazy at all when you were young. Some homework could function as a task for the student to perform which is helpful to motivate him/her.

Thirdly, homework is an important form of feedback for a teacher to understand the effectively of his/her teacher. As I have mentioned before, a teacher makes a study plan for the students; but does it really work? Or does it work for all the students? It's not difficult to know this only if the teacher pays some attention to the homework of the students. Then he/she may be able to find if there's some problems in his/her teaching, and make corresponding adjustment (сделать соответствующую корректировку) of his/her teaching, either for all the students or for a single one. Without some feedback, it is impossible for the teacher to do this. A test is also a good form of feedback, but obviously one or two tests are not enough, and sometimes this kind of feedback just comes to late.

However, This conclusion might be misleading (может ввести в заблуждение) that one may believe all forms of homework are necessary. Actually, only proper amount (необходимое количество) of homework in proper forms is acceptable; some homework may not only fail to (не в состоянии) help the students, but on contrary bore them, so much so that they may lose their innate (природный) interest to study. "Proper" homework, in my opinion, should vary in its forms; it might be some extensive reading, a paper, or even just a game, as well as other ordinary exercises. And it should leave enough freedom to the students so that they could do things they really like to do with self-motivation, rather than unwillingness. We should always remember that homework is something for us to guide the students, rather than drive them. Only if a teacher keeps this in his/her mind, the homework could be of most help to the students.