Interviews

Advanced

1. Brainstorming

• Ask students: What is your opinion on homework? Is it useful or unnecessary?
• List students’ thoughts on the board, categorizing them as pros and cons.

2. Discussion Questions

• Homework helps students remember what they learned in class.

• Too much homework can cause stress and burnout.

• Teachers should give less homework and more in-class practice.

• Homework teaches responsibility and time management.

• Some subjects don’t need homework at all.

• Students should not get homework on weekends or holidays.

• Group homework is better than working alone.

• Parents should not help with their child’s homework.

• The quality of homework is more important than the amount.

• Homework isn’t fair if students don’t all have a quiet place to study.

4. Agree or Disagree Statements

Present statements like:

• “Homework improves learning.”
• “Homework harms students’ work-life balance.”
• “All assignments should be completed during school hours.”
  Have students indicate whether they agree or disagree and explain their reasoning.

5. Prediction Task

• Share the title (Homework: Useful? – Interview) and ask:
  • What do you think will be discussed in the interview?
  • What might the speakers’ opinions be?

Here are some words and expressions that appear in the video:

useful (adjective): helpful, beneficial, practical

– This guide is very useful for learning how to organize your assignments.
– The teacher gave us some useful tips for studying efficiently.

balance (noun): a state of equal or fair distribution between two things

– It’s important to find a balance between work and relaxation.
– The athlete trained hard but maintained a healthy balance in her life.

assign (verb): to give a specific task or responsibility to someone

– The teacher will assign a group project for the science fair.
– Our boss assigned me to lead the presentation at the meeting.

perspective (noun): a point of view or way of looking at something

– Listening to others’ perspectives can help us better understand a situation.
– From my perspective, homework helps me review what I learned in class.

relevant (adjective): closely related or connected to the topic or situation

– The examples in the book were very relevant to the lesson.
– Please include only the most relevant information in your report.

Now, watch the interview and answer the comprehension questions. You can also turn on the automatically-generated captions for the video once you start it.

Randall: In this video, Aubrey, let us talk about a topic about homework. Is it useful or not? And I think, well, you know, you were in school, you, you know, growing up and you went to college and you graduated. But I’m sure there were times where, “This homework is very insightful. This really benefits my life.” And there are other times where, “This is totally useless.” Any thoughts about that topic?

Aubrey: Well, I’m sure you have different opinions than I do since I’m assuming you assign homework.

Randall: Well, yeah, yeah, but I know that there are times being a teacher I have to ask myself: “Is this relevant to what they’re doing or is it busywork?” Thoughts on that?

Aubrey: I think you could set yourself up for having bad boundaries at work work. If you’re building up this culture of taking your stuff home, you’re killing your work-life balance ’cause you’re used to it.

Randall: Yeah, but what about for students? Can you think of times where homework . . . 

Aubrey: So students aren’t people, uh, is that what you’re saying? They don’t need work-life balance?

Randall: No, they do, but I’m just saying in this particular case, “This homework would be very relevant and important to me.” And this, “I just feel that the teacher is giving me busywork.” Uh, that’s what I’m thinking about. Can you think of examples in that regard?

Aubrey: So I guess that’s definitely, you know, a different conversation.

Randall: Okay.

Aubrey: Where I just feel like if you, you should all be able to get it all done at school. But I’m also not a teacher.

Randall: Okay.

Aubrey: But, yeah

Randall: Yeah.

Aubrey: Being assigned busywork is nonsense.

Randall: Yeah, but can you think of examples where this teacher is just giving me some busywork? They, they’re trying to think of how to occupy time, whether they throw it at you at school, whether they assign extra homework, like some type of punishment. That’s what I’m talking about.

Aubrey: Yeah. Like, I had a, a teacher the first time I went to take my

Randall: Mr. Smith right?

Aubrey: . . . taxation class. Yeah. Oh, yeah, definitely.

Randall: What class was that?

Aubrey: Taxation.It was for individual income tax.

Randall: .

Aubrey:

Randall: Sounds deep.

Aubrey: Uh, because I have a degree in accounting, which I don’t do anything with. They wanted us to read each chapter of the book and, like, write an essay about it.

Randall: Okay.

Aubrey: I dropped that class. I did not have the energy to do that. Like . . .

Randall: So what was the purpose of these essays?

Aubrey: To understand it, I guess? But I feel like if I read the book, I answer a quiz I can perform on the test. I can fill out these tax forms. I don’t know why I have to write an essay on every single chapter of a book.

Randall: Yeah, and did the teacher actually read them, comment on them, or just kind of like you checked it off?

Aubrey: Oh, I have no idea. I dropped the class.

Randall: Okay. Oh, wow.

Aubrey: I took it from a different professor who was way nicer. He was he was really funny, and I really appreciated . . . We had a final project that he recommended not doing by yourself because you had a whole . . . .it was a whole big income tax filing because in the United States, income tax filings are ridiculous. The, the government knows how much money you owe them, but they’re not gonna tell you. But he did allow me to do it by myself, and I got a pretty good score, so that was nice.

Randall: So we’re saying that maybe there are cases when it can be useful for the purpose of learning, but there are other times when just, I don’t know, just some teachers seem to take it out on the student.

Aubrey: I suppose you could say that. I just don’t think homework should be a thing.

Randall: Okay. Oh, you think you just should eliminate it?

Aubrey: Yeah, because like I said at the beginning, it sets up bad work-life balance.

Randall: Okay.

Aubrey: ‘Cause if you’re taking a full course load, right, what’s considered full time, I think everything should be done within the confines of school, just like everything should be done within your workday. I mean, we definitely have different opinions on this.

Randall: No, no, I think that . . .

Aubrey: But you’ve gotta have that good work-life balance, because if you’re studying all the time, like, yeah, if you decide to take like a ridiculous amount of classes, that’s on you. But just like if you have multiple jobs, although that’s a different situation with like economics or whatever, you should have that ability to go home and just be yourself, not go home and then study for ten more hours.

Randall: Yeah. No, and I agree. I think there are times when even I assign a homework task in class, especially, for example, if it’s meant to build collaboration skills, you know, amongst students and so forth, you can work through the task and so forth. So I see there’s a benefit of doing things in class, not simply not to take things home, but there can be, you know, some type of pedagogical instructional purpose to it as well. Well, thank you, Aubrey, for sharing some of your thoughts on this topic.

1. In which situations would you take off work and for how long? Explain your ideas.

• You are sick.
• Your child is sick.
• Your pet needs an operation.
• You car needs to be repaired.
• You overslept.
• Your house has flooded because of a broken pipe.
• A child is graduating from high school.
• A friend or family member has passed away.

2. Do companies in your area provide paid leave for any of the situations mentioned above? In what cases would you have to take time off without pay?

3. In your family or culture, are there any celebrations to commemorate the transition from childhood to adulthood similar to a “sweet sixteen” event?

4. What kinds of activities or situations could ruin a fun party (for example, bad weather or unexpected unruly guests)? Has anything like this happened to you before?

The following activities deal with related topics to give you additional language practice.

• Happy Birthday
• Happy Birthday – Games