This is a guest post from Rebekah Palmer (http:palmerlanguage.blogspot.com). Cross fertilization of ideas amplifies the abilities of all of us. If any of my readers have experiences or suggestions, please feel free to share them.

As educators, we often talk about goal setting. We set long-term goals for courses and short-term lesson objectives. We think about whether these goals and objectives are being met. We reflect and set new goals. This is nothing new.

It is surprising, therefore, that there is so little focus INSIDE the classroom on learner goals; talking about objective-setting and student responsibility for working towards and achieving goals is typically absent.

When no specific goals are defined in the classroom, the default goal of language learning becomes native-speaker level language production. Becoming native-speaker-like in a language is a dedicated effort – it is not necessary for competent communication, and the high standard demanded may not even be beneficial for many students. It requires spending a great deal of time learning very specific, tiny details that may not be important for learners in their daily lives. At the same time, the ominous goal of native-speaker language ability looms over all of us like a rain cloud pouring down on any feeling of learner success we might have briefly had.

Goals and motivation go hand-in-hand. Students need to first identify their motivations for learning, and THEN they can define their long-term proficiency goals. At that point, they must also be given the responsibility to pursue those goals. Too often, we as educators create dependent learners who rely on us for everything. The classroom is merely one facet of language learning, and to treat it as the only one is to cripple language learners.

Activity:

 This is an activity adapted from Rebecca Oxford’s Language Learning Strategies that I do with my students on the first day (it would be helpful later in the course as well). Here is a GoogleDocs link to the PDF that I made to use with it.

Start by having students identify their language learning motivation (i.e., I need English for work, I want to learn English so that I can take a trip to the USA, etc.). From there, have them identify how important each of the language macro-skillls (listening, reading, writing, speaking) is for their overall language goal, with “1” being “not very important” and “5” being “very important.”

Then, have them identify the level they want to achieve in each macro skill. (It is helpful to remind them that this is a beginning goal, and that when they reach it, they can set a new one.)

Next, brainstorm a list of all the possible ways that they can work towards these goals for the four macro-skills. Write a list on the board. Past lists have included watching the English news (listening, some reading), watching a movie with English subtitles (reading), talking to English-speaking family members (speaking, listening), reading the newspaper or a comic book (reading), writing an email to English-speaking friends (writing), etc. Make sure you have ideas for all four macro skills.

Once you have written them all down, have the students star the ones that are possible for them in their lifestyle. As they are doing that, I mention to them this wonderful idea that I read at Creativity and Language:  Language learning is not like learning history. You can’t just memorize dates and facts. Language learning is like learning to play the piano. No matter how much you “know,” you must practice constantly if you want to be skilled at it.

Once they have the list, help them to create specific goals for today, tomorrow, and this week. Share the goals with all the students and begin to create a positive, supportive atmosphere of goal setting, evaluation, and re-setting. If you have time in the rest of the course, it is also nice to evaluate weekly goals and set new ones.

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Bekah Palmer is a language consultant and English trainer in Baden-Württemberg, Germany. She enjoys research in Linguistics and Language Education, and (with the help of her husband and sometime language co-blogger, Tim Palmer) writes about it at http://palmerlanguage.blogspot.com.  Her special and current interests include Authentic Language, Conversation Analysis, Language Learning Strategies, DogmeELT / Teaching Uplugged, Autonomous Language Learning, and Third-Language Acquisition.