A learning moment recently presented itself.
- What incentive does the student have for simply copying the answers? Doing or not doing the workbook exercises has no direct effect on the students’ grades. Obviously there is an indirect effect in most cases since understanding the answers to the questions (not just knowing the answers) can help ELLs with the learning process.
- The “only” thing that ELLs lose if they fail to understand the answers (not simply by copying them from the answer key) is time. Granted, time is of the essence for many students who put off meeting their foreign language requirement, but there is no financial loss and students are free to choose to retake the same level at no cost if they feel they are not ready to proceed to the next level.
- Spending class time simply checking answers from the workbook is a waste of time – it does not provide the evidence needed in order for EFL/ESL educators to infer whether students understand why the answer is correct. Providing the answers to the questions alone should not be confused with providing sound feedback from activities completed in the workbook through formative or dynamic assessment. This is also referred to as “solving the problem backward” through “planning in reverse: means-ways-ends“.
- Having answers to the workbook can promote autonomous learning. I say can promote because many times autonomous learning requires teachers to facilitate the process, providing ELLs the strategies to become more autonomous.