Learning Objectives

Learning objectives usually take few lines in a course syllabus or in a lesson plan, but properly composed and clearly stated learning objectives can influence the flow of the learning process greatly.

First of all, learning objectives help to vector learners in the right direction. They state what a learner can be able to do and what he is supposed to know upon a completion of a certain stage of the learning process. At the same time they direct an instructor in his or her planning, thus keeping the teaching process focused on achieving learners’ goals.

Although objective writing process may seem quite obvious, in fact an instructor should constantly keep several things in mind: what should learners Know? what can learners actually do and what Skills should they have? what attitude towards the learning process and its results should learners reflect and how are they Affected? In other words learning objects depend on at least 3 parameters (SKAs). 

To be considered clear and effective, in other words “SMART”, learning objectives should satisfy a number of requirements. They must be 

• Specific (learners realize what is expected from them).
• Measurable (the teacher can say if objectives are achieved or not).
• Achievable (it is possible for learners in their particular situation to say “Done!” and put a huge check next to the objective). 
• Relevant (objectives are related to the course in general and learners can understand why they need to achieve this objective).
• Timely (the timeframe given to achieve the objective is reasonable).

Acronym SMART occurred back in 1981. In today’s world being SMART is not enough, learning objectives are becoming SMARTER: we should always keep in mind that learning process, and thus objectives we set for our learners, must be Engaging and Rewarding as well.

Fluency in Communication

Fluency is an ability to express yourself readily and effortless. A transition from mental concepts to articulated speech is automatic and instinctive for a native speaker. But it can be quite a challenge for an EAL learner. That is why language learning process should give enough attention to fluency-based issues.

So, what aspects can make an EAL learner a fluent speaker? First of all, I want to point out an ability to use natural speech and authentic discourse. Even if a learner’s speech is grammatically “spotless”, but he keeps using archaisms in his speech, he will sound "weird" and will still have problems with expressing his ideas. One of the ways to gain “authenticity” and “naturalness” in speech is to repeat whatever learners listen to in real life (phrases from movies, song lyrics, people talking in a bus (of course to avoid awkwardness in this situation, it’s better to repeat phrases silently), an EAL teacher’s questions or instructions, etc.).

Another attribute of the natural language is idiomatic language. Apparently you can’t get far in developing fluency skills if you don’t know and can’t use idioms and idiomatic expressions (set phrases, phrasal verbs, etc.)

One of the fluency-based challenges for an EAL learner includes applying correct tone and register. In other words different types of situations require particular types of language to use (talking to a boss, talking to a neighbour, talking to a close friend). If we add numerous language functions (giving advice, apologizing, having an argument, etc.) the variety of communication situations will grow at an exponential rate. It’s impossible to learn all the cases, but using discourse chains in the learning process is a good way to promote fluency.

Types of knowledge that learners use to make sense of a text

According to Hedge there are 6 types of knowledge that allow readers to guess the meanings of unknown words in the text. I find this idea quite interesting, so I have decided to check if it is really so and if it is applicable to the real life. 

In the lesson notes to Module 4 we were suggested to have a look at 2 websites in foreign languages (Czech (www.zvedavec.org) and Greek (www.agelioforos.gr). And it was really amazing to see yourself what complete beginners feel when they are asked to read a text.

I know neither Greek nor Czech. I am not familiar with the Greek alphabet, so it is impossible for me even to read a text. Czech is a Slavic language, so as a Russian-speaker I can understand meanings of a few words. Besides grammar rules of the Czech language are a bit similar to Russian, so sometimes I can identify syntactic functions of unknown words. That is why to maintain the experimental integrity I decided to add one more language: Finnish (www.hs.fi). I do not know it either and it is not close to any language I know, but at least its script is familiar to me.

So let’s have a look at Czech, Finnish and Greek news websites in the light of Hedge’s theory of 6 types of knowledge.

Type of knowledge	Definition	Czech (script is familiar, some prior knowledge of grammar and vocabulary)	Finnish (script is familiar, no prior knowledge of grammar and vocabulary)	Greek (script is not familiar, no prior knowledge of grammar and vocabulary)
Syntactic knowledge	The knowledge of grammatical relations of words within a sentence that allows a reader to guess a possible part of speech of the unknown word	“Láska k národu” Noun (subject) + preposition + noun (object)	-	-
Morphological knowledge	The knowledge of morphological rules and laws of morphological parsing that allows to identify a semantic field.	“a pomocí” “ na pomoc” Different grammatical cases of 1 word	-	-
General world knowledge	Extralinguistic knowledge that allows a reader to guess the meaning relying on his personal experience and intuition	My general knowledge of news websites structure allows me to understand, that “sobota” is Saturday and “únor” is February	My general knowledge of news websites structure allows me to understand, that “uutiset” is news	My general knowledge of news websites structure allows me to understand, that “Σάββατο” is Saturday and “Φεβρουαρίου” is February
Sociocultural knowledge	Knowledge of social and cultural peculiarities	The section “Zábava” contains the following subsections: Anekdoty, Humor, Kultura. Relying on my sociocultural knowledge I may assume that “Zábava” means entertainment.	-	-
Topic knowledge	The knowledge of a text theme may allow a reader to make suggestions concerning unknown words	-	-	-
Genre knowledge	The knowledge of a text genre may allow a reader to make suggestions concerning general ideas of what the text is about	Top texts on news websites are usually about political or economic issues	Top texts on news websites are usually about political or economic issues	Top texts on news websites are usually about political or economic issues

So, these 6 types of knowledge really work when you have some prior knowledge of a foreign language. In this case you can apply both systemic knowledge (# 1, 2) and schematic knowledge (# 3, 4, 5, 6). But when you are not familiar with a foreign language at all (and it doesn’t actually matter if you know its script or not), these 6 types of knowledge will not help you to read and understand texts. May be to some degree you can rely on the schematic knowledge, but just to identify some single elements, but not the general idea of the text.