The art of goal setting

Ken Beatty
A business woman looking and pointing at a wall full of post it notes

Reading time: 4 minutes

Dr. Ken Beatty defines goals and explains why we should think of them as doors to open rather than fixed targets.

Goals as doors

My eldest son, Nathan, failed to achieve the biggest goal of his life: becoming a garbage truck driver. It's hardly surprising - he was only four years old at the time. His ambition likely dissolved once he realized that garbage trucks sometimes smell bad. Before then, he'd mostly observed them from the safety of our apartment window.

As is the case with most people, his goals have changed. Completing his degree in international economics, hoping to work in technology startups until he forms one himself. Or maybe not. Goals evolve.

Researchers and teachers have known for decades that goals are vitally important motivations in general education and language learning. After examining 800+ studies, Hattie (2009) identified goals as among the most powerful instructional interventions for improving student success.

The basic message is that goals are good. However, other researchers (Rowe, Mazzotti, Ingram, & Lee, 2017) suggest that teachers have trouble embedding them in lessons.

Part of the problem might be in finding a way to visualize goals. Goals are often pictured as archery targets or soccer nets, but a more useful metaphor is a door. When we have a goal, we may not fully understand it until we enter into the goal, as if it were a room, inevitably finding choices of other doors leading off in other directions.

Understanding where goals come from

Before we start to set goals for our students, it's important that we have a degree of self-awareness and understand where our own attitudes and ideas come from.

As teachers, we tend to resemble the people who inspired us most. Our own teachers, good and bad, shape our attitudes toward teaching and language-learning goals.

Who was your favorite teacher? In my case, my all-time favorite teacher was Mr. Chiga, who, in 1970, taught me Grade 7 and was about to retire. He was a Renaissance man. Short and tough with fingers like cigars, he would occasionally lead us from the playground up two flights of stairs to our classroom¡­ walking on his hands. Yet these same hands were delicate enough for his hobby of making violins, a fact I only learned later, because, unlike me, Mr. Chiga was modest.

Mr. Chiga loved literature and taught us Greek and Roman history with a sense of joy that has never left me. One would think that his educational goals would be a perfect foundation for my own. Perhaps. But a quick check on the timeline shows that if he was about to retire in 1970, he was probably born in 1905 and likely graduated from teachers' college around 1925.

It's ironic that although my Ph.D. is in the area of computer-assisted language learning, my favorite teacher began his career two years before the invention of the television, and, moreover, all his teachers would have been born in the 1800s.

It's a long story to make a short point: as teachers, we need to reflect on where our teaching and learning goals come from and question them. We also need to avoid those things that our least favorite teachers did.

Setting goals

Are the goals we set for our students sometimes too low? Undoubtedly.

As a Grade 11 student, my only ambition in life was to take a two-year photo technician course. My counselor discouraged me, saying I wasn't academic enough and suggested a job at the wood mill instead. In a sense, he closed a door.

I switched schools where another favorite teacher, Mr. Ferguson, patiently kept me after school for six weeks, teaching me how to write essays and, by extension, how to think. He dangled the motivation of a university education before me and set me on my path there. And that was a door opened.

So what's the lesson here? More than just knowing where goals come from, we also need to be aware of the power of goal setting and how it can drastically alter a particular student's life trajectory.

Closing doors, rather than opening them, often stunts growth and limits possibilities. It can even lead to students forming life-long assumptions about themselves that just aren't true - "I'm no good at math," "I'm not cut out for independent travel", etc. Opening doors, however, can bring our students entirely new perspectives on life.

Expecting goals to change

When it comes to changing goals, there are a number of factors to take into account, including forming a better sense of self. We might start off with many ambitions but we measure ourselves against the realities of our skill sets and modify our goals.

For example, a student who experiences a lot of success in learning English is more likely to consider careers that require it. Teachers, too, are more likely to offer direction: "You write very well. Have you considered a career in journalism?"

Today, countless jobs require a second language or provide better promotion opportunities for students who speak two or more languages. Yet, students oriented toward employment opportunities may have difficulty understanding the long-term advantages of learning a second language if specific jobs are not on their radar.

This leads to two questions:

  • What goals should we help students set for themselves?
  • And how should teachers suggest them?

Many goals are based on the educational standards that govern our profession. The Global Scale of English (GSE), in particular, is helpful to both textbook writers and teachers in identifying language goals and provides teachers with detailed steps to achieve them.

But beyond such standards are those two magic ingredients that teachers share with language learners: joy and motivation.

Teachers spread joy in learning by example, making language learning engaging and pleasurable. Teachers also motivate students by helping them identify personal goals, giving them reasons why language proficiency is not just worthwhile in general but is perhaps one key to future success.

It might even lead to a job driving a garbage truck.

Read more about language teaching

References

Hattie, J. A. (2009).?Visible Learning: A Synthesis Of Over 800 Meta-Analyses Relating To Achievement.?New York: Routledge

Rowe, D.A, Mazzotti, V.L., Ingram, A., & Lee, S. (2017). Effects of Goal-Setting Instruction on Academic Engagement for Students At Risk.?Career Development and Transition for Exceptional Individuals.?40(1) 25¨C35.

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    The most commonly misspelled words in English

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    If you've ever had the feeling a word doesn¡¯t look right after you've typed it, you are not alone.?The most commonly misspelled words from this list pose challenges for more people than you think. English native speaker or not, hard-to-spell words are determined to give you a headache. And if bad spelling does happen, it¡¯s usually in very important contexts like a vital application letter or during a conversation with your crush ¨C which can really change the tone and potentially cause confusion or embarrassment.

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    1. Accommodate not accomodate

    Also commonly misspelled as:?acommodate

    Let¡¯s start strong with a typical example of double consonants ¨C two sets of them.?

    2. Acquire not aquire

    Think of this rhyme whenever you encounter the word: 'I c that you want to acquire that wire'.

    3. Awkward not akward

    It also describes how we feel when we realize we¡¯ve just misspelled a word.

    4. Believe not belive

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    5. Bizarre not bizzare

    It¡¯s bizarre that there is only one Z but that¡¯s the way It is.?

    6. Colleague not collegue

    Also commonly misspelled as:?collaegue, coleague

    It¡¯s hard to get this one right! Make a funny association like 'the big league of the double Ls', you may just win the misspelling match.

    7. Embarrassed not embarassed

    Also commonly misspelled as:?embarrased

    If you remember this one, you¡¯ll reduce the chances of finding yourself in an embarrassing bad spelling situation.?

    8. Entrepreneur not enterpreneur

    Also commonly misspelled as:?entrepeneur, entreprenur, entreperneur

    It¡¯s not only hard to spell, but also hard to pronounce. The origins? It¡¯s a French word coming from the root entreprendre (¡®undertake¡¯).

    9. Environment not enviroment

    The N is silent, so it¡¯s quite easy to misspell this one too. Luckily, it¡¯s similar to 'government' whose verb is 'to govern' which ends in N. A very long, but good association.?

    10. Definitely not definately

    Also commonly misspelled as:?deffinately, deffinitely, definitley

    You¡¯ll definitely get this one right if you remember it¡¯s not a case of double letters. Neither does it feature any As.?

    11. Liaison not liasion

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    12. License not lisence

    ?In American English, it¡¯s always spelled 'license' ¨C no matter what. On the other hand, in British English, it¡¯s spelled 'license' when it¡¯s a verb and 'licence' when it¡¯s a noun. Once you decide which spelling you¡¯ll use ¨C American or British ¨C it¡¯s best to go forward with that and stick to it.?

    13. Publicly not publically

    Words ending in 'ic' receive the 'ally' suffix when transformed into adverbs (e.g., organically). But 'public' makes an exception so it¡¯s understandable if you misspell it.

    14. Receive not recieve

    Remember the 'I before E, except after C' rule? This is the kind of word where the rule applies. It also applies to 'niece' and 'siege', but it doesn¡¯t apply to 'weird' or 'seize'. So remember the rule but keep in mind it has some exceptions.

    15. Responsibility not responsability

    People often get tricked by this word¡¯s pronunciation. And if you think about it, it does really sound like it has an A in the middle. Safe to say ¨C it doesn¡¯t. So keep an eye out.

    16. Rhythm not rythm

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    17. Separate not seperate

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    18. Strength not strenght

    Even spelling pros will sometimes have to think twice about this one. Our mind is probably used to seeing the H after the G because of words like 'through'. Not this time though (wink wink).

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    19. Successful not successfull

    Also commonly misspelled as:?succesful, sucessful

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    20. Succinct not succint

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    21. Thorough not thurough

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    22. Until not untill

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    23. Whether not wether

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    24. Which or witch not wich

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    Advice to avoid misspellings

    One obvious answer would be spell-checkers, but the truth is that spell-checkers won¡¯t actually help you to improve your spelling. You will continue to misspell words and they¡¯ll continue to correct them. This process is passive and won¡¯t stimulate you to learn the correct spelling because somebody else already does the job for you.?

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    If you keep attempting to spell challenging words and checking them it will begin to sink in and become second nature over time. Using tools like dictionaries and language learning apps such as Mondly can help you practice and learn spelling. If you persevere and practice you can avoid any spelling mishaps.?

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    We hear a lot about how AI is increasingly being used in areas where there is a need to deal with large amounts of unstructured data, effectively and 100% accurately ¨C like in medical diagnostics, for example. In language testing, AI uses specialized computer software to grade written and oral tests.?

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    The first step is to build an acoustic model for each language that can recognize speech and convert it into waveforms and text. While this technology used to be very unusual, most of our smartphones can do this now.?

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    AI¡¯s lack of bias

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    There is nothing wrong with hand-marking homework tests and exams. In fact, it is essential for teachers to get to know their students and provide personal feedback and advice. However, manually correcting hundreds of tests, daily or weekly, can be repetitive, time-consuming, not always reliable and takes time away from working alongside students in the classroom. The use of AI in formative and summative assessments can increase assessed practice time for students and reduce the marking load for teachers.

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    • allow students to practice and get instant feedback inside and outside of allocated teaching time

    • address the issue of teacher workload

    • create a virtuous combination between humans and machines, taking advantage of what humans do best and what machines do best.?

    • provide fair, fast and unbiased summative assessment scores in high-stakes testing.

    We hope this article has answered a few burning questions about how AI is used to assess speaking and writing in our language tests. An interesting quote from Fei-Fei Li, Chief scientist at Google and Stanford Professor describes AI like this:

    ¡°I often tell my students not to be misled by the name ¡®artificial intelligence¡¯ ¡ª there is nothing artificial about it; A.I. is made by humans, intended to behave [like] humans and, ultimately, to impact human lives and human society.¡±

    AI in formative and summative assessments will never replace the role of teachers. AI will support teachers, provide endless opportunities for students to improve, and provide a solution to slow, unreliable and often unfair high-stakes assessments.

    Examples of AI assessments in ELT

    At ÃÛÌÒapp, we have developed a range of assessments using AI technology.

    Versant

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    PTE Academic

    The ?is aimed at those who need to prove their level of English for a university place, a job or a visa. It uses AI to score tests and results are available within five days.?