TeachingEnglish
Setting Short-term Goals
Submitted by Heath on 19 January, 2010 - 03:02
I've recently become a bit more interested in 'goal-setting' for learners. Research seems to indicate a correlation between successful language learning and working with short-term goals, but I rarely see any ideas regarding the types of goals that learners should set.
Questions about goals.
What particular types of short-term goals should our learners be setting?
- Which of the potential goals below look suitable?
- Might any of them have negative consequences too? (eg. over-emphasis on a particular area causing Ss to neglect other areas).
- What (other) types of goals would you suggest?
Potential goals.
(I'm picturing a young adult learner attending a 2hr lesson on Tuesday and again on Thursday each week, setting 4 week goals, and using the coursebook for ideas about goals. Goals might be written in their first language).
- I will be able to recognise 15 new words about household items when I hear them or read them.
- I will be able to use 'be going to' to talk about weekend or holiday plans with my classmates and to ask them questions about their plans.
- I will be able to talk about my family members (their personal information and a little bit about their likes).
- I will be able to read and understand the main ideas in a short (1 or 2 paragraphs) post-card, letter, or e-mail from a friend, a classmate, or a pen-pal.
- I will regularly use some classroom questions with other students and the teacher (eg. How do you spell that?)
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I do understand that we are currently talking about setting goals in general, but I can suggest a very specific example of some kind of motivation sooner than goal setting. anyway, when I teach a group of 3-4 students any age and we need a break I suggest saying at first one sentence like 'we need a break', or 'let's go to the kitchen' and it's getting more and more complicated according to the students' level and they are aware of the necessity to remember all the phrases required if they want to take a break. I really like it and my students likewise.
Hi Heath,
You asked for ideas about types of goals. You could adapt the Council of Europe Common European Framework can-do statements fairly easily
http://www.coe.int/T/DG4/Portfolio/documents/Lingualevelfinal09.pdf
Best wishes,
Stuart
These look good to me. I think it is particularly interesting that you use 'read', 'talk' and 'understand' in your goals and not the 'go away and learn these' principle often employed when giving homework.
I am keen on giving learners ideas about how to achieve this type of goal. Things like reviewing target language regularly for a short period (say 15 mins a day) rather than a long period once a week. Finding someone to review with or practice on is another thing I suggest to them.
It is important that learners can regularly achieve the goals you set without finding it a burden. Good study skills are a key to this. Do you have any good techniques that you think work well?
That's a good idea, Stuart. Thanks for that. Any examples, for quick reference, of how you might word a goal based on the Framework?
Nicroseper has a good point too. I agree that it's important to give the Ss ideas for how to achieve the goals. The only thing is, I find that while many teachers are good at helping Ss and giving them ideas for how to develop, goal setting always feels more vague and many of us aren't that good at developing clear and specific aims for the Ss to have.
I'm going to explore Stuart's idea now... but would welcome any other suggestions regarding, and/or examples of, goal setting.