I would like everyone who reads this post to comment on it.
During my 4 months volunteering at ISC I have witnessed several instances of students engaging in activity I would call cheating or in the students perspective "helping one another". For instance on Tuesday afternoon while quizzing students on food vocabulary one of the students was referring to a hidden picture dictionary for answers. I had already asked the students to close their books so I quickly removed all the picture dictionaries from the classroom and reminded the students not to cheat. On the same day I also saw an advanced student giving answers to a beginner student on what appeared to be homework, I asked them to stop, but I can not guarantee that outside of ISC that they did not resume their activity.
Cheating hurts the teaching quality in two ways that I can think of at ISC
1. The students who cheat rely on one or two more advanced students for answers and thus do not learn
2. The teachers believing that the students have learned the material move on too more advanced material and thus the students who cheated fall further behind and are forced to rely more on the advanced students and cheat more.
Finally, once our students get out into the real world they can not function.
Try to address these questions in your comments
A. What do you do in the classroom to stop or prevent cheating?
B. What should/can WE do in the future to stop or prevent cheating?
C. Is the cheating a cultural difference? The US is an Individual centered culture while many of the countries the students are coming from are Family centered. Perhaps asking the students not to cheat is strange for them because they expect to be able to rely on other family members to get what they need. For example the mother age 45 may not realistically expect to get a job here in the US and expect her son age 25 to make the money for the family while she cooks food and watches her grandchildren.
D. So if you do believe that the cheating is a cultural difference, do you think that we should change the way we teach them to account for the different roles the students are expected to take in their families?
Good comments Josh. I do agree with what you have seen. I have always considered it "normal" for them to talk amongst themselves while doing worksheets - but perhaps it is not helping them learn as well. I have not actually given them a quiz or test but am sure they would "cheat" if i did. Since I teach mainly the advanced - it is not as much of an issue but in encountering the beginners class I can see how it might keep some of them back.
ReplyDeleteNot sure what I would suggest for the future. At some point they need to be self-reliant if they are to be productive in the work force. Looking for direction from Faten. thanks Josh.
Friday - November 4th 9-12.
ReplyDeleteMichelle went over prepositions with the beginners and then articles. Justine took the class out to Subway to practice ordering out.
Susan worked with the advanced class (6 students) and went over one worksheet of matching words with meanings and then we took turns reading an article (practicing reading) and understanding new vocabulary.