The factors to consider in defining the context such as: people, physical setting, stakeholders, teaching resources and time are crucial if we design the program instead of just following the textbook. Graves (2000) mentions that defining the context and articulating your beliefs serve as the foundation for the process to follow when designing your own program. Assessing needs, formulating goals and objectives, developing materials, designing an assessment plan, organizing the course and conceptualizing content is described as a framework of course development process. Although there is no one way of organizing a course; the factors mentioned can help you choose how to do it. The results have to make sense to you, to the students, and to the authorities.
What are goals and objectives and what is their relationship?
Goals
It is mentioned that “stating your goals helps to bring into focus your visions and priorities for the course” Graves (2000: 75p). And she keeps on saying that they are general statements, but they are not vague.
Objectives
Objectives are more specific than goals. They break down aims into smaller units of learning, and typically describe learning in terms of observable behavior or performance in terms of what a learner will be able to do. Objectives help planning the course and enable evaluators to judge the success or failure of a program. Formulating goals and objectives helps to build a clear vision of what you will teach. A clear set of goals and objectives can provide the basis for your assessment plan (p.79)
What are ways to formulate and articulate goals and objectives?
How to formulate goals
The first step is to list all the possible goals you could have for your particular course, based on your conceptualization of content, your beliefs, and/or your assessment of students’ needs. Next step is to look for redundancies, and to identify priorities based on your beliefs and your context. There is a similar framework which I used to consider whenever I made a curriculum (p.85)
-Language goals : language skills learners are expected to acquire in the classroom
-Strategic goals : strategies learners use to learn the language
-Philosophical goals : changes in learners’ attitudes or social behaviors that result from classroom instruction
-Method or process goals : the activities learners will engage in
How to formulate objectives
Mager who wrote on performance objectives suggests that for an objective to be useful, it should contain three components: Performance, condition and criterion. Performance describes what the learners will be able to do, condition describes the circumstances in which the learners are able to something, and criterion, the degree to which they are able to do something and criterion, the degree to which they are able to do something. (p. 86)
When reflecting on our own teaching we know that most of the time, we have used a commercial textbook as our syllabus for the different levels of English we have taught along our in-service years. Sometimes we modify something or add what we consider is missing in the current book used. But we do not take into consideration that most of the books have not been designed specifically for our different contexts. It is not the same to teach to students from a capital city than it is to teach students in a Secondary School up in the mountains where they do not have any kind of access to computers and less to the internet. In my opinion, both goals and objectives should be states in terms of the level of learners and their specific situation. Also I used to meet extremely enthusiastic new teachers who try to pack too much into one objective, so we should limit each objective to a specific skill or language area.
Right. Too mamy matrials or resourses could turn not good. Proper amount and well-chosen materails should be given. Moreover, the materials, if they are made or possibly changed, could be alterd to another ones for suitted class. Therefore, teachers have to agonize over what are suitable to students.
ReplyDeleteLike you mentioned, I thought designing our own program as an in-service teacher might be really time consuming and also difficult to teach how to do it to pre-service teachers, but I also realized that in the long run it is rewarding when knowing about we are giving the students what they want and need and not just what has been decided by the authorities.
ReplyDeleteAs it says in the book, By a teacher's goals and objectives, students can get a clear idea of what the course is about, what they will learn, and what is important to the teacher about what and how they will learn clearly(p.94).
Thanks to your blog I can easily understand How to formulate goals and objectives. Actually, before I read this chapter I have no idea goals and objectives. They sound alike. But as you mentioned teacher need to give students clear idea of the course. Teachers’ role is getting more tough and more important!
ReplyDeleteYour reflection is full of helpful advice and deep thought as a coordinator running your own institute so I have learned a lot from you insight. Especially, your last comment that teachers should not try to pack too much into one objective corresponds to my realization after reading this chapter. Teachers tend to let students know all knowledge and information teachers have with a rush. In particular, for the early young learners, I think that step-by-step teaching is most important. In this sense, Graves’ following advice will be helpful: Learning does not suddenly jump from point A to point Z (p.89). Goals are not a “wish list.”
ReplyDelete