Who said homework couldn't be fun?

What's the first word that comes to your mind when you hear someone say "homework"? Boring? Horrible? Exhausting? Jail?

Don't worry you're not alone! We normally tend to associate homework with something bad, something that we have to do because the teacher says so. When we hear that we have homework for the next class, we normally think that we are going to have to do something that is extremely boring and that we are not going to enjoy. Not one bit.

While this might be true (well let's be honest, it's true in most of cases), teachers can also change things to make doing homework something that is not a tedious task, it could also be a fun and entertaining thing. I discovered this when I worked as a teacher. We could do a certain activity (a listening for example) but I could put it in two different ways: the traditional way that students are sick of to the point of almost hating it, or I could make it fun for them.

An activity that really helped me during this period (and my classes loved it!) was doing a filling the gaps listening but instead of a normal listening (the traditional "listen to the conversation between A and B, I get it, you're sick of them, but we have to do them sometimes) we would do them with songs that they chose. That way, we would practice the listening part everyday and each day one student would get to choose a song they wanted. That way they also felt as a part of the class and they wanted to participate more. What started as an opportunity for me to see if that was going to work, it ended as something that we all looked forward too at the end of each class.

We also did this watching series in class in special occasions (Halloween, the week before Christmas...) and I could also use this in other areas, such as speaking or writing.

So, next time you hear someone say that doing homework is always boring, know that they could not be further from the truth!