1. 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

2. What is a Learning Objective?
Discuss with partner

3. 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

4. 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

5. 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.

6. “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

7. GSE Learning Objectives: building out the CEFR

8. 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

9. 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

10. 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

11. 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

12. Global research

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

14. Setting Learning Objectives

15. 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

16. 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

17. The Global Scale of English ecosystem

18. GSE Teacher Toolkit: making your lives easier!

19. 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)

20. Alignment to other standards

21. 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

22. 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

23. There’s so much more to learn
Find out more about us at
english.com/gse