MS Applied Linguistics (Humanities) - Spring 2020: Curriculum Development in Language Teaching (HS-502)

MS Applied Linguistics (Humanities) – Spring 2020
Week 9&10
Lecture 1
Lecturer Ms. Hina M. Ali Curriculum Development in
Department of
Humanities Language Teaching
(HS-502)
WHAT WE WILL COVER?
Upon completion of week 9&10 you will be able to:
1. Understand the Bloom’s Taxonomy

2. Analyse the importance of Bloom’s taxonomy in the
development of goals and objectives
3. Understand the concept of aims/goals, objectives/outcomes
4. Examine course goals and instructional objectives
5. Create course goals and objectives
Week 8 Lecture 1 MS Applied Linguistics (Humanities) – Fall 2020

Bloom’s Taxonomy
Bloom’s Taxonomy is a multi-tiered model of classifying thinking according to

six cognitive levels of complexity.
Throughout the years, the levels have often been depicted as a stairway,
leading many teachers to encourage their students to “climb to a higher (level
of) thought”.
Week 8 Lecture 1 MS Applied Linguistics (Humanities) – Spring 2020

Aims & Objectives Language Teaching Methodology
Bloom’s Taxonomy as a Framework for Writing Learning Objectives
Developing a basic understanding of Bloom’s Taxonomy (Bloom et al., 1956) is

a good place to start as you begin writing learning objectives.
Bloom’s Taxonomy in a nutshell: In the late 1940’s a group of educators began

classifying educational goals and objectives. The intent was to develop a
classification system for three domains: the cognitive (mental skills or
knowledge), the affective (feelings and emotional skills or attitude), and the
psychomotor (manual or physical skills). The work that resulted in the
cognitive domain was completed in 1956 and is commonly referred to
as Bloom’s Taxonomy of the Cognitive Domain (Bloom et al., 1956).
Week 1 R. Lecture 1 English Linguistics (Humanities) – Spring 2020
The major concept of the taxonomy is that educational objectives can be

arranged in a hierarchy that moves from less to more complex levels of
knowledge. The levels are successive; one level must be mastered before the
next level can be reached.
The original levels published by Bloom et al. (1956) were ordered as

follows: Knowledge, Comprehension, Application, Analysis, Synthesis, and
Evaluation.


In 2001 Anderson and Krathwohl published a revised version of Bloom’s
Taxonomy that reflected what has been learned in the forty or so years since it
was first published.
In summary, the changes reflect more outcome-focused modern education

objectives and include switching the names of the levels from nouns to active
verbs. The two highest levels have also been changed with the pinnacle level
now being ‘create’. The revised levels are: Remember, Understand, Apply,
Analyze, Evaluate and Create.

Bloom’s Taxonomy
In 1956, Benjamin Bloom with collaborators Max Englehart, Edward Furst,

Walter Hill, and David Krathwohl published a framework for categorizing
educational goals: Taxonomy of Educational Objectives. Familiarly known
as Bloom’s Taxonomy, this framework has been applied by generations of K-12
teachers and college instructors in their teaching.
The framework elaborated by Bloom and his collaborators consisted of six

major categories: Knowledge, Comprehension, Application, Analysis,
Synthesis, and Evaluation. The categories after Knowledge were presented as
“skills and abilities,” with the understanding that knowledge was the
necessary precondition for putting these skills and abilities into practice.

Bloom’s Taxonomy

Bloom’s Taxonomy
Here are the authors’ brief explanations of these main categories in from the appendix
of Taxonomy of Educational Objectives (Handbook One, pp. 201-207):
Knowledge “involves the recall of specifics and universals, the recall of methods and
processes, or the recall of a pattern, structure, or setting.”
Comprehension “refers to a type of understanding or apprehension such that the individual

knows what is being communicated and can make use of the material or idea being
communicated without necessarily relating it to other material or seeing its fullest
implications.”

Bloom’s Taxonomy
Here are the authors’ brief explanations of these main categories in from the appendix
of Taxonomy of Educational Objectives (Handbook One, pp. 201-207):
Application refers to the “use of abstractions in particular and concrete situations.”
Analysis represents the “breakdown of a communication into its constituent elements or

parts such that the relative hierarchy of ideas is made clear and/or the relations between
ideas expressed are made explicit.”
Synthesis involves the “putting together of elements and parts so as to form a whole.”
Evaluation engenders “judgments about the value of material and methods for given
purposes.”

Bloom’s Taxonomy

Bloom’s Taxonomy
While each category contained subcategories, all lying along a continuum from
simple to complex and concrete to abstract, the taxonomy is popularly
remembered according to the six main categories.
Bloom’s taxonomy outlines six levels of cognitive gain.
The lower levels of Bloom’s taxonomy focus on the knowledge that we want
our students to acquire – what we want our students to remember and
understand. The middle levels focus on application and analysis of
information. At the top of Bloom’s taxonomy are tasks that involve creating
and evaluating.

Bloom’s Taxonomy
1.Remembering: Retrieving, recognizing, and recalling relevant knowledge from

long‐term memory.
2.Understanding: Constructing meaning from oral, written, and graphic messages
through interpreting, exemplifying, classifying, summarizing, inferring, comparing,
and explaining.
3.Applying: Carrying out or using a procedure for executing or implementing.
4.Analyzing: Breaking material into constituent parts, determining how the parts relate
to one another and to an overall structure or purpose through differentiating,
organizing, and attributing.
5.Evaluating: Making judgments based on criteria and standards through checking
and critiquing.
6.Creating: Putting elements together to form a coherent or functional
whole; reorganizing elements into a new pattern or structure through generating,
planning, or producing.

Bloom’s Taxonomy
How Bloom’s can aid in course design
Bloom’s taxonomy is a powerful tool to help develop learning objectives because

it explains the process of learning:
•Before you can understand a concept, you must remember it.

•To apply a concept you must first understand it.
•In order to evaluate a process, you must have analyzed it.
•To create an accurate conclusion, you must have completed a thorough evaluation.

Bloom’s Taxonomy

Bloom’s Taxonomy
However, we don’t always start with lower order skills and step all the way through
the entire taxonomy for each concept you present in your course.
Instead, start by considering the level of learners in your course:
1.Are lots of your students freshman? Is this an “Introduction to…” course? If so,
many your learning objectives may target the lower order Bloom’s skills, because
your students are building foundational knowledge.
However, even in this situation we would strive to move a few of your objectives into
the applying and analyzing level, but getting too far up in the taxonomy could create
frustration and unachievable goals.

Bloom’s Taxonomy
2. Are most of your students juniors and seniors? Graduate students? Do your
students have a solid foundation in much of the terminology and processes you will
be working on your course?
If so, then you should not have many remembering and understanding level
objectives. You may need a few, for any radically new concepts specific to your
course.
However, these advanced students should be able to master higher-order learning

objectives. Too many lower level objectives might cause boredom or apathy.

Bloom’s Taxonomy
How Bloom’s works with learning objectives
Fortunately, there are “verb tables” to help identify which action verbs align with
each level in Bloom’s Taxonomy.
You may notice that some of these verbs on the table are associated with multiple
Bloom’s Taxonomy levels. These “multilevel-verbs” are actions that could apply to
different activities.

Bloom’s Taxonomy
For example, you could have an objective that states “At the end of this lesson,
students will be able to explain the difference between linguistic competence and
linguistic performance.” This would be an understanding level objective.
However, if you wanted the students to be able to “…explain the shift in the linguistic
competence throughout the various phases of language learning.” This would be
an analyzing level verb.
Adding to this confusion, you can locate Bloom’s verb charts that will list verbs at
levels different from what we list below.
Just keep in mind that it is the skill, action or activity you will teach using that
verb that determines the Bloom’s Taxonomy level.

Bloom’s Taxonomy

Bloom’s Taxonomy

Bloom’s Taxonomy

Bloom’s Taxonomy

Bloom’s Taxonomy

Bloom’s Taxonomy

Bloom’s Taxonomy

Bloom’s Taxonomy

Bloom’s Taxonomy
Course level and lesson level objectives

The biggest difference between course and lesson level objectives is that we don’t
directly assess course level objectives.
Course level objectives are just too broad. Instead, we use several lesson level
objectives to demonstrate mastery of one course level objective.
To create good course level objectives, we need to ask ourselves: “what do I want the
students to have mastery of at the end of the course?” Then, after we finalize our course
level objectives, we have to make sure that mastery of all of the lesson level objectives
underneath confirm that a student has mastery of the course level objective—in other
words, if your students can prove (through assessment) that they can do each and every
one of the lesson level objectives in that section, then you as an instructor agree they
have mastery of the course level objective.

Bloom’s Taxonomy
How Bloom’s works with course level and lesson level objectives:
•Course level objectives are broad. You may only have 3-5 course level
objectives. They would be difficult to measure directly because they overarch the
topics of your entire course.
•Lesson level objectives are what we use to demonstrate that a student has mastery
of the course level objectives.
•We do this by building lesson level objectives that build toward the course level
objective. For example, a student might need to demonstrate mastery of 8 lesson
level objectives in order to demonstrate mastery of one course level objective.

Bloom’s Taxonomy
How Bloom’s works with course level and lesson level objectives:
•Because the lesson level objectives directly support the course level objectives, they
need to build up the Bloom’s taxonomy to help your students reach mastery of the
course level objectives.
•Use Bloom’s Taxonomy to make sure that the verbs you choose for your lesson level
objectives build up to the level of the verb that is in the course level objective.
•The lesson level verbs can be below or equal to the course level verb, but they
CANNOT be higher in level. For example, your course level verb might be
an Applying level verb, “illustrate.” Your lesson level verbs can be from any Bloom’s
level that is equal or below this level (applying, understanding, or remembering).

Bloom’s Taxonomy
Bloom created hierarchies for the psychomotor and affective domains as well.
These scales try to capture the increasing complexity associated with learning in
each domain.

Bloom’s Taxonomy

Goals
• Several key assumptions about goals characterize the curriculum approach to

educational planning. These can be summarized as follows:
• People are generally motivated to pursue specific goals.
• The use of goals in teaching improves the effectiveness of teaching and
learning.
• A program will be effective to the extent that its goals are sound and
clearly described.
• These principles appear to be self-evident and uncontroversial, and most
language programs describe their goals in terms of aims and objectives

Goals
The nature of aims and objectives, however, is not necessarily

straightforward because they refer to knowledge, skills, and values
that educational planners believe learners need to develop.

Aims & Objective
• Aims reflect the ideology of curriculum and show how curriculum will seek to
realize it.
• Aims statement are generally derived from information gathered during a
needs analysis,
• and objective in language teaching are based on understanding of the nature
of the subject matter being taught (e.g. listening, speaking reading, writing).

Aims & Objective
If we use the analogy of a journey,

• the goal is the destination,
• the different points we pass through the journey to the destination are the
objectives,
• the kinds of transportation we use are the enabling activities,
• how to manage the journey to arrive at the destination is the classroom
management,
• and the course or program is the journey.

Aims & Objective
• In curriculum discussions, the terms goal and aim are used interchangeably
to refer to a description of the general purposes of a curriculum
• objective to refer to a more specific and concrete description of purposes.

Aims & Objective
• An aim refers to a statement of a general change that a program seeks to

bring about in learners. The purposes of aim statements are:
• to provide a clear definition of the purposes of a program
• to provide guidelines for teachers, learners, and materials writers
• to help provide a focus for instruction
• to describe important and realizable changes in learning
• Aims statements reflect the ideology of the curriculum and show how the
curriculum will seek to realize it.

Aims & Objective
• The following statements describe the aims of teaching English

• Our pupils learn English in order to:
• communicate effectively, in both speech and writing, in everyday situations to
meet die demands of society
• acquire good reading habits to understand, enjoy, and appreciate a wide
range of texts, including the literature of other cultures
• develop the ability to express themselves imaginatively and creatively
• develop a sensitivity to, and an appreciation of, other varieties of English and
the culture they reflect
• These statements reflect several of the philosophies discussed in the
preceding section.
Aims & Objective
• The following are examples of aim statements from different kinds of

language programs.
A business English course
• to develop basic communication skills for use in business contexts
• to learn how to participate in casual conversation with other employees in a
workplace
• to learn how to write effective business letters
• Aim statements are generally derived from information gathered during a

needs analysis

Aims & Objective
In developing aim statements, it is important to describe more than simply

the activities that students will take part in. In other word the aim
statements need to focus on the changes in learners that will result.
The following, for example, are not aims:
• Students will learn about business-letter writing in English.
• Students will study listening skills.
• Students will practice composition skills in English. Students will learn English for
tourism.

Aims & Objective
For these to become aims, they need to focus on the changes in the learners
that will result. For example:
• Students will learn how to write effective business letters for use in the hotel and
tourism industries.
• Students will learn how to listen effectively in conversational interactions and how to
develop better listening strategies.
• Students will learn how to communicate information and ideas creatively and
effectively through writing.
• Students will be able to communicate in English at a basic level for purposes of
tourism.

Aims & Objective
• Aims are very general statements of the goals of a program. They can be interpreted in
many different ways.
• For example, consider the following aim statement:

• Students will learn how to write effective business letters for use in the hotel and tourism
industries.
• Although this provides a clear description of the focus of a program, it does not describe
the kinds of business letters students will learn or clarify what is meant by effective
business letters.
• In order to give a more precise focus to program goals, aims are often accompanied by
statements of more specific purposes. These are known as objectives.
• They are also sometimes referred to as instructional objectives or teaching objectives.

Aims & Objective
• An objective refers to a statement of specific changes a program seeks to

bring about and results from an analysis of the aim into its different
components.
• Objectives generally have the following characteristics:

• They describe what the aim seeks to achieve in terms of smaller units of
learning.
• They provide a basis for the organization of teaching activities.
• They describe learning in terms of observable behavior or performance.

Aims & Objective
• The advantages of describing the aims of a course in terms of

objectives are:
• They facilitate planning, once objectives have been agreed on, course
planning, materials preparation, textbook selection, and related processes
can begin
• They provide measurable outcomes and thus provide accountability given a
set of objectives, the success or failure of a program to teach the objectives
can be measured.
• They are prescriptive; they describe how planning should proceed and do
away with subjective interpretations and personal opinions.

Aims & Objective
Aim
• Students will learn how to understand lectures given in English.
Objectives
• Students will be able to follow an argument, theme, or thesis of a lecture.
• Students will learn how to recognize the following aspects of a lecture:
• cause-and-effect relationships
• comparisons and contrasts
• premises used in persuasive arguments
• supporting details, used in persuasive arguments

Aims & Objective
The characteristics of objective statements are:

• Objectives describe a learning outcome.
• Objective should be consistent with the curriculum aim.
• Objective should be precise.
• Objectives should be feasible.
Objectives are therefore normally produced by a group of teachers or planners

who write sample objectives based on their knowledge and experience and
revise and refine them over time. That’s why objectives cannot be regarded as
fixed.

Aims & Objective
Objectives describe a learning outcome.

• In writing objectives, expressions like will study, will learn, will prepare
students for are avoided
• because they do not describe the results of learning but rather what students
will do during a course
• Objectives can be described with phrases like
• Will have
• Will learn how to
• Will be able to
Aims & Objective
Objective should be consistent with the curriculum aim

• Only objectives that clearly serve to realize an aim should be included
• Objective below is unrelated to the curriculum aim
• Students will learn how to write effective business letters for use in the hotel and
tourism industries.
• Objective
• The student can understand and respond to simple questions over the telephone.
• Because the aim relates to writing business letters, an objective in the domain of
telephone skills is not consistent with this aim. Either the aim statement should be revised
to allow for this objective or the objective should not be included.

Aims & Objective
Objective should be precise.

Aims & Objective
Objectives should be feasible

Bloom’s Taxonomy
Steps towards writing effective learning objectives:
1.Make sure there is one measurable verb in each objective.
2.Each objective needs one verb. Either a student can master the objective, or they fail to
master it. If an objective has two verbs (say, define and apply), what happens if a student
can define, but not apply? Are they demonstrating mastery?
3.Ensure that the verbs in the course level objective are at least at the highest Bloom’s
Taxonomy as the highest lesson level objectives that support it. (Because we can’t verify
they can evaluate if our lessons only taught them (and assessed) to define.)
4.Strive to keep all your learning objectives measurable, clear and concise.

Why?
• The purpose of a behavioral objective is to communicate . Therefore, a well-

constructed behavioral objective should leave little room for doubt about
what is intended.
• Objectives communicate and guide development of assessment,
instructional methods, and content materials.
• Objectives communicate the focus of learning that enables instructors and
students to work toward a common goal.
• The teacher can use objectives to make sure goals are reached.
• Students will understand expectations. Any skill is learned more
effectively if the learner understands the reason for learning and
W epracticing
ek 1 it. R. Lecture 1 English Linguistics (Humanities) – Spring 2020
Why?
• Objectives communicate the assessment and grading. Objectives provide a

means of measuring whether the students have succeeded in acquiring
skills and knowledge.
• Objectives communicate and allow students the opportunity for self-
evaluation .

How?
Instructional objectives must be written to
communicate realistic, measurable, and learner centered outcomes.
• Realistic objectives can be achieved by the learners within your time frame
and in your given environment.
• Measurable objectives enable you to observe and determine how well
learners have acquired skills and knowledge.
• Learner centered objectives state what the learner can do at the end of a
course. They always start with action verbs.

How?
Instructional objectives must be written to
communicate realistic, measurable, and learner centered outcomes.
• Specify intended results or outcomes, and not the process. Teaching and
lecturing is part of the process of instruction, but it isn't the purpose of the
instruction. The purpose is to facilitate learning.
• Instructional objectives contain four components: the Audience, the
Behavior, the Condition, and the Degree.

When?
Objectives should be developed:

Before a lesson or course is developed (by designer).
Before a lesson or course is taught (by instructor).
Objectives should be reviewed with students at the beginning of the
course/module/lesson.

Aims & Objective
Sound objectives in language teaching are based on:

• an understanding of the nature of the subject matter being taught (listening,
speaking, reading, writing)
• An awareness of attainable levels of learning for basic, intermediate or
advanced-level learners
• And the ability to describe course aims in terms of logical and well-
constructed units of organization
• Objectives can not therefore be regarded as fixed. As instruction proceed,

some may have to be revised, some dropped because they are unrealistic
and others added to address gaps
Aims & Objective

Aims & Objective

Aims & Objective

Aims & Objective

Aims & Objective

Aims & Objective

Aims & Objective

Aims & Objective

Aims & Objective

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MS Applied Linguistics (Humanities) – Spring 2020

Upon completion of week 9&10 you will be able to:

1. Understand the Bloom’s Taxonomy

Week 8 Lecture 1 MS Applied Linguistics (Humanities) – Fall 2020

Bloom’s Taxonomy is a multi-tiered model of classifying thinking according to

Week 8 Lecture 1 MS Applied Linguistics (Humanities) – Spring 2020

Bloom’s Taxonomy as a Framework for Writing Learning Objectives

Developing a basic understanding of Bloom’s Taxonomy (Bloom et al., 1956) is

Bloom’s Taxonomy in a nutshell: In the late 1940’s a group of educators began

Bloom’s Taxonomy as a Framework for Writing Learning Objectives

The major concept of the taxonomy is that educational objectives can be

The original levels published by Bloom et al. (1956) were ordered as

Week 1 R. Lecture 1 English Linguistics (Humanities) – Spring 2020

Bloom’s Taxonomy as a Framework for Writing Learning Objectives

In summary, the changes reflect more outcome-focused modern education

Week 1 R. Lecture 1 English Linguistics (Humanities) – Spring 2020

In 1956, Benjamin Bloom with collaborators Max Englehart, Edward Furst,

The framework elaborated by Bloom and his collaborators consisted of six

Week 8 Lecture 1 MS Applied Linguistics (Humanities) – Spring 2020

Week 8 Lecture 1 MS Applied Linguistics (Humanities) – Spring 2020

Comprehension “refers to a type of understanding or apprehension such that the individual

Week 8 Lecture 1 MS Applied Linguistics (Humanities) – Spring 2020

Application refers to the “use of abstractions in particular and concrete situations.”

Analysis represents the “breakdown of a communication into its constituent elements or

Week 8 Lecture 1 MS Applied Linguistics (Humanities) – Spring 2020

Week 8 Lecture 1 MS Applied Linguistics (Humanities) – Spring 2020

Bloom’s taxonomy outlines six levels of cognitive gain.

Week 8 Lecture 1 MS Applied Linguistics (Humanities) – Spring 2020

1.Remembering: Retrieving, recognizing, and recalling relevant knowledge from

Week 8 Lecture 1 MS Applied Linguistics (Humanities) – Spring 2020

How Bloom’s can aid in course design

Bloom’s taxonomy is a powerful tool to help develop learning objectives because

•Before you can understand a concept, you must remember it.

Week 8 Lecture 1 MS Applied Linguistics (Humanities) – Spring 2020

Week 8 Lecture 1 MS Applied Linguistics (Humanities) – Spring 2020

Instead, start by considering the level of learners in your course:

Week 8 Lecture 1 MS Applied Linguistics (Humanities) – Spring 2020

However, these advanced students should be able to master higher-order learning

Week 8 Lecture 1 MS Applied Linguistics (Humanities) – Spring 2020

How Bloom’s works with learning objectives

Week 8 Lecture 1 MS Applied Linguistics (Humanities) – Spring 2020

Week 8 Lecture 1 MS Applied Linguistics (Humanities) – Spring 2020

Week 8 Lecture 1 MS Applied Linguistics (Humanities) – Spring 2020

Week 8 Lecture 1 MS Applied Linguistics (Humanities) – Spring 2020

Week 8 Lecture 1 MS Applied Linguistics (Humanities) – Spring 2020

Week 8 Lecture 1 MS Applied Linguistics (Humanities) – Spring 2020

Week 8 Lecture 1 MS Applied Linguistics (Humanities) – Spring 2020

Week 8 Lecture 1 MS Applied Linguistics (Humanities) – Spring 2020

Week 8 Lecture 1 MS Applied Linguistics (Humanities) – Spring 2020

Week 8 Lecture 1 MS Applied Linguistics (Humanities) – Spring 2020

Course level and lesson level objectives

Week 8 Lecture 1 MS Applied Linguistics (Humanities) – Spring 2020

Week 8 Lecture 1 MS Applied Linguistics (Humanities) – Spring 2020

Week 8 Lecture 1 MS Applied Linguistics (Humanities) – Spring 2020

Week 8 Lecture 1 MS Applied Linguistics (Humanities) – Spring 2020

Week 8 Lecture 1 MS Applied Linguistics (Humanities) – Spring 2020

• Several key assumptions about goals characterize the curriculum approach to

Week 8 Lecture 1 MS Applied Linguistics (Humanities) – Spring 2020

The nature of aims and objectives, however, is not necessarily

Week 8 Lecture 1 MS Applied Linguistics (Humanities) – Spring 2020

Week 8 Lecture 1 MS Applied Linguistics (Humanities) – Spring 2020

If we use the analogy of a journey,