Integrating Goal Setting into Instructional Practice

Staff at the Center for New Americans

Our program offers ESOL classes from the beginning to advanced levels to adult immigrants and refugees in Franklin and Hampshire counties in Western Massachusetts. In this article we'd like to share our approach to learner goal setting in the hope that other programs will find it useful.

Goal setting at intake

During the intake interview, Massachusetts adult education programs ask learners about their reasons for wanting to study. Among other things, this activity supports a Department of Education reporting requirement. At this stage, students usually have only a broad idea of what they want to accomplish. Examples of goals frequently mentioned at intake interviews are: "to speak English," "get a job," and "learn about the U.S." However, if students are to feel successful and motivated in class, and to persist in adult basic education classes in the face of the many obstacles in their lives, we believe it is necessary to make these general goals clearer and more specific.

At The Center for New Americans, we have developed a successful classroom-based approach that helps students explore the goals they reported at the intake interview so that they become more specific, measurable, achievable, and realistic. Teachers then link these goals directly to classroom activities. Connecting learners' goals and class instruction helps teachers meet students' needs and allows students to experience success in meeting their goals, which contributes to their increased motivation and persistence.

Goal-setting activities in the classroom

The general goal that a student reports at intake is recorded on the Student Goals Form, which is passed on to the teacher. During the first two weeks of a new class session or tutorial, the teacher presents activities that help the student break the general goal into smaller steps, or mini-goals. In accomplishing the mini-goals, students experience success and personal satisfaction. Mini-goals also help students to realize the amount of time needed to achieve their larger goal. These activities are the heart of a successful class and must be viewed as part of instructional time, not separate from the curriculum. In addition, they are crucial to the development of our learners as co-negotiators of the curriculum.

By the end of the second week, students are able to outline several smaller, more specific steps toward their larger goal. In class, each student thinks about what he or she wants to study the following week and reports to the group. These student requests become the basis of the curriculum for the week ahead. The teacher plans lessons, activities, and materials that respond to these requests. The teacher might include other elements that are needed based on learning assessments. At the end of each week, students reflect on their learning in their logs, and again make requests for the following week-in essence, setting new mini-goals. The reflection time allows students to self-assess what they have learned and how well they have learned it. Both reflection and planning take time and are considered part of instruction as well. The teacher always responds to the new requests the following week, and assesses past lessons by observation, evaluation of performance tasks, quizzes, and other formal or informal modalities. This process progresses in a spiral, with the goals directly informing instruction, followed by assessment by both students and teachers and the setting of new mini-goals as the class continues. (See Figure 1.)

How does it really work?

Let's think about a beginning ESOL class of ten learners. The primary goals set by these students at intake were to communicate more effectively in English, get a job, learn about U.S. culture, and become a U.S. citizen. A goal-setting activity might begin by using pictures to teach the names of several places in town, including town offices and schools and other places used by the learners. Students could also draw pictures, and a list could be put up on the wall in the classroom. Once these places were identified and could be recognized, the teacher could ask the students if they needed or wanted to use English in these different places. The teacher could ask each student to prioritize which three or four he or she wants to focus on during the class cycle. A calendar is useful here to emphasize the finite amount of time available for a given topic. Students would then write the selected places that interested them in their individual logs.

Among other introductory activities, the curriculum for the initial week of class might include teaching students how to name places where they need or want to communicate in English. The following week might include one specific place - for example, the doctor's office - where
a dialog about calling for an appointment would be studied, practiced, and role-played; a TPR (Total Physical Response) activity might be performed to help students learn what doctors and nurses might say; students might study a vocabulary lesson about the people and things at the doctor's office - ailments and symptoms, for example. The curriculum depends on what needs the students have expressed.

At week's end, each student would reflect on their learning and discuss what they want to study the following week. The teacher might need to narrow the focus of the requests by asking questions. These ten student requests would become the basis for the teacher's lessons in the upcoming week.

In our next example, students of an advanced ESOL class have set similar goals at intake: to communicate more effectively in English, get a better job, and learn about U.S. culture. An activity that helps these advanced students develop mini-goals involves their breaking into small groups and making lists of what they can do in English. A follow-up activity is to have them develop a list of what they want to be able to do in English. These lists can be put up
on the classroom wall to help the students remember what has been discussed.

One item on the second list might be "to speak fluently" - a very broad and long-term goal. Students can work together to explain their reasons for selecting this goal, and through this process, their individual needs will become clearer. For example, one student's goal of speaking fluently might actually mean being understood by Americans. For another, this same goal might mean being able to express feelings in English. By probing, the teacher might discover that for the first student pronunciation of specific sounds is difficult and for the other a lack of specific vocabulary or cultural appropriateness is the area of concern. Calendars or timelines work well with these students to break the goals down into manageable steps. These mini-goals, different for each individual, should be recorded in the students' learning logs.

The teacher again collects the requests and plans the lessons for the next week based on the mini-goals developed. At the end of the following week, students reflect individually on the activities and on their learning and set new mini-goals, which become the basis for activities once again. In each class, the challenge is to marry all the requests or mini-goals in one week's time, to respond to all of them to a reasonable extent. Once the students learn to reflect and are able to recognize what they still don't know or don't know well enough, they become adept at making more specific requests. By the end of the semester, another round of formal assessment is conducted and reported. Intake goals that have been met are recorded at this time.

In conclusion

We believe this process of week-to-week curriculum design is feasible for
all ABE classes, even those with more defined curricula such as GED. If the subject is essay writing, steps that need to be mastered can be identified and a timely plan set in motion. Students can choose to write about topics that interest them.

Elsa Auerbach writes that "The essence of a participatory approach is centering instruction around content that is engaging to students."1 As a staff, we have found that responding to specific requests from students for activities makes lesson planning easier and increases students' motivation and retention, and that students are more likely to be engaged and active learners if the material is relevant to their lives.

This article was written by Nicole B. Graves, ESOL teacher (beginners and high intermediate levels) and ESOL Program Coordinator, and Peg Cahill, ESOL teacher (high beginner/low intermediate level) and Support Services Aide, with input from other members of the staff. The Center for New Americans teaches English to immigrants and refugees in Amherst, Greenfield, and Northampton, MA.

1.Auerbach, Elsa. Ways In finding Student Themes in Making Meaning, Making Change: A Guide to Participartory Family Literacy and Adult ESL. University of Massachusetts, Boston:1990

Originally published in Adventures in Assessment, Volume 16 (Spring 2004),
SABES/World Education, Boston, MA, Copyright 2004.

Funding support for the publication of this document on the Web provided in part by the Ohio State Literacy Resource Center as part of the LINCS Assessment Special Collection.