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Having told my students, "Your attendance will effect your marks." I needed to keep track of it. Any simple system will do if you verify it with a head count.

[edit] How do you take roll?

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[edit] Pass around a notebook

I use a cheap lined notebooks and rule up four columns to a page. Each student is to write his English name in one column and his student number in the adjacent column. The students pass the book around the class and, when everyone has signed, I collect it for recording in the class record. This does not take up any lesson time and is relatively foolproof if you verify it with a head count.

I hand this book to the nearest student at the beginning of each lesson and from there it automatically goes round the class. The system works well because a simple head count is enough to confirm the number of names matches the number of students present. When an anomaly occurs I announce that we have some "ghosts" in the class and I need to do a roll call. Usually I can tell from the writing who has done a "double up" but the roll call avoids pin-pointing the "culprit" in front of the class. After a couple of roll calls this puts an end to people signing in for anyone else and results in proper messages and notes when people are absent. Another benefit of the roll call is in providing the opportunity to relate names to faces.

Later in the day, or during the lesson break, I transfer the attendance to the class summary sheet that covers all the lessons of the semester. I use this latter sheet to calculate the percentages to allocate for total attendance.

[edit] Sign in sheet + question

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We must, as ESL teachers, take attendance. We can, however, also turn this bureaucratic chore into a learning opportunity where students can share experiences and create a closer classroom community.

Respecting the student remains the key, it seems to me, of a successful classroom. One trick is having students sign in everyday and answer some question like what's your favorite TV show, movie, website, and brand. Students get a chance to express their preferences, try out new sides of their personality, and directly communicate with each other as the attendance sheet is passed from person to person. Of course, I also ask numerous course linked questions like "tips for writing a persuasive essay" or "a good mistake to avoid in your next presentation." This exercise has given me far greater insight into students and open up many topics for both classroom discussions and deeper personal conversations during student conferences. Finally, I have used this technique in elite private university (University of Southern California), quality public universities intensive English programs (UCLA and Cal State Long Beach), a community college (Santa Monica), and adult schools (Los Angeles, Santa Monica).

At the end of semester, many students have credited the sign-in questions with establishing an open, tolerant, and dynamic classroom environment.