Teaching secondary
school aged students

Exercise Box

What and Why?

The Exercise Box is introduced in Unit 4 in Level 1 and in Supplementary Unit B in Level 2. It is used for the entire course. Each class can have its own Exercise Box (a small cardboard box or shoe box with cardboard dividers) which, ideally, should be kept in the classroom or taken to every lesson. The purpose of the Exercise Box is to encourage students to write their own exercises which they keep in the Exercise Box for other students to use later, particularly if there is time to spare in a lesson. Students learn a great deal from writing exercises for each other.

Practical ideas

• Refer to the ideas list for examples of kinds of exercises that students can write. Students can write a neat, correct version of their exercise on a blank postcard. They should put the answers on the back.
• The Time to spare section gives students a chance to write an exercise and/or answer an exercise from the exercise box
• Use the exercise box if some students finish a task before the others.
• The Exercise Box will gradually build up to offer a source of revision and/or remedial work
• For easy reference, label the exercises, showing what unit they come from. You can divide the box into sections for each unit. You may want to colour code the exercises for difficulty.
• You can add your own exercises to the box, of course.