SMART objectives for smart teachers Image by Lucy Vigrass SMART objectives for smart teachers Mike Mayor Director, Global Scale of English JALT, Nagoya, 26 November 2016 Presentation Title Arial Bold 7 pt 1

What is a Learning Objective? Discuss with partner

Learning Objectives Discuss with your neighbour: What is a Learning Objective? Do you use Learning Objectives in your teaching? If yes, how? Do you use existing Learning Objectives or do you create your own? If you use existing ones, which?   Extending the CEFR – a more even distribution of learning objectives across the levels and skills

Learning Objectives What a Learning Objective is NOT: A goal (a broad statement, non-specific, long-term) An “involvement objective” (to get students participating, having fun) An “activity objective” (things that will get covered in the lesson – first we’ll do this, then we’ll do that….) A “coverage objective” (what I – the teacher – am going to get through in this lesson)   Extending the CEFR – a more even distribution of learning objectives across the levels and skills

Learning Objectives What a Learning Objective IS: “ a statement of what students will be able to do at the end of a piece of instruction” Good learning objectives should meet a set of SMART criteria:   Specific – can’t be too general or you won’t be able to measure it. Vague goals tend to be ignored; specific goals can be monitored. Easier to pick up on smaller goals that are missed Measurable – there should be some tangible output at the end of a piece of instruction that allows the teacher to assess if the skill has been learned Achievable – should be within the ZPD (eg. Cognitively achievable for YLs). Also – motivational. Goals that are too large are ignored. Relevant – students need to understand why they are doing something Time-framed – easier to visualise success in managable chunks. It takes 10k hours to master anything – daunting! Break it down.

“Simply tell students what they will be learning before the lesson begins and you can raise student achievement as much as 27 percent” John Hattie (2013) Placing learners at the heart of instruction Involving them in the learning process (21st century skills – self evaluation) Motivating through small achievable steps

GSE Learning Objectives: building out the CEFR

Context: English framework Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (2001): developed in Europe for a European learning environment developed for adult and young adult learners mainly focussed on general English with some reference to work and study uneven distribution of Can Do statements across the four skills 6 wide levels no information below A1

The CEFR: Losing the details of progress CEF boundaries A1 A2 B1 B2 C1 C2 Learner 2 3 Descriptor 1 <A1 1, 2,3: A person at the top of A2 is closer to another learner at the bottom B1, than to another learner at the bottom of A1 So by defining the CEFR levels, we have moved away from a granular analysis Boundaries in CEFR are arbitrary – not true reflection of progress on continuum Start learning Mastery 9

The CEFR: An uneven distribution of Can Do statements Speaking 65% Here you can see the distribution of descriptors in the CEFR. It’s clearly apparent that speaking has the largest volume of descriptors, and, at least 65% of the descriptors in the CEFR are about speaking. Also, in each of the skills, there is a spike in descriptors between A2 and B2. When taken as a whole at least 65 percent of all descriptors fall between A2 and B2. This means we have a lot of information to describe what students can do with English once they have achieved some skill, and as they move towards intermediate and high intermediate fluency. However, there is very little information about what learners need to do when they are starting their language learning journey and where they can expect to go as they achieve mastery. A2-B2

Creating Learning Objectives Defining what a learner “can do” at specific levels of the Global Scale of English Workshops with expert raters (teachers) from around the world + online surveys Sources Learning objectives Syllabuses Course materials National curricula CEFR Can ….. Can ….. 42 43 44 Can ….. 43 ?? Mike Can ….. Pearson Learning Objectives database Can ….. Additional review & revision required

Global research

GSE Learning Objectives   Extending the CEFR – a more even distribution of learning objectives across the levels and skills

Setting Learning Objectives

Setting Learning Objectives Pre-intermediate group of Adult students (A2+) Topic: Travelling/Holidays Task: What learning objectives would you set for Speaking and Writing?   Extending the CEFR – a more even distribution of learning objectives across the levels and skills

Using Learning Objectives Can understand the general meaning of short simple informational material and descriptions if there is visual support. (34) Can tell a story or describe something in a simple list of points. (40)   Extending the CEFR – a more even distribution of learning objectives across the levels and skills Can write short basic descriptions of past events and activities. (39) I want to focus on listening skills

The Global Scale of English ecosystem

GSE Teacher Toolkit: making your lives easier!

GSE Teacher Toolkit Search Learning Objectives at A2+ for Speaking and Writing. Speaking: Can tell a story……. (40) Writing: Can write short basic descriptions…… (39) Show drop-down and link to Grammar. Grammar: A2+ - select Verb and Tense: Can distinguish between past simple and past continuous. Open to show worksheets: Tina’s Terrible Trip. (Show Adjectives: comparison for the Speakout Los) Vocabulary: does any of the vocabulary in SO seem low level? Stretch your students by looking slightly above the target range: coast, stream, national park…… (36-52)

Alignment to other standards

Alignment to other international standards IELTS, TOEFL iBT, TOEIC Concordance studies carried out during the field-testing of PTE- Academic + data provided by ETS about the linking of TOEFL iBT to CEFR and IELTS

Alignment to CEFR-J 20 descriptors were selected from the English translation of the CEFR-J Descriptors were included in a set of new GSE Learning Objectives for Adult Learners sent to teachers for rating Results were obtained from 602 teachers from 44 countries Classical analysis results show a good correlation between the difficulty ranking of CEFR-J and GSE. Full report available on English.com/gse

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