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

MS Applied Linguistics (Humanities) – Spring 2020
Week 11 & 12
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 11 & 12 you will be able to:
1. Understand the importance of aims and objectives

2. Understand the purpose of aims and objectives
3. Analyse the development of aims and objectives
4. Understand the characteristics of aims and objectives
5. Examine course aims and instructional objectives
6. Create course aims and objectives
Week 8 Lecture 1 MS Applied Linguistics (Humanities) – Fall 2020

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

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
• 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.
• For the purpose of our course, we will use the terms aims and objectives

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 in-
terpreted 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.

• Objectives that are vague and ambiguous are not useful
This is seen in the following objective for a conversation course:

• Students will know how to use useful conversation expressions
A more precise objective would be:

• Students will use conversation expressions for greeting people, opening and closing
conversations

Aims & Objective
Objectives should be feasible

Objectives should describe outcomes that are attainable in the time available during a
course.
The following objective is not attainable in a 60-hour English course:

The student will be able to follow conversations spoken by native speakers
The following is a more feasible objective:

Students will be able to get the gist of short conversations in simple English on topics
related to daily life and leisure

Bloom’s Taxonomy
Steps towards writing effective learning objectives:
1.Make sure there is one measurable verb in each objective.
1.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?
2.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.)
3.Strive to keep all your learning objectives measurable, clear and concise.

Aims & Objectives Language Teaching Methodology
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
practicing it.
Week 1 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.

Heinich and his colleagues (2002) suggest that well written objectives have
four parts. They call these parts the ABCD's of instructional objectives.
A. Audience
The audience is the group of learners that the objective is written for.
Objectives are not written for the teacher.
This is often written "the learner" or "the student"; however, it could be

written as specific as "The third grade science student".

B. Behavior
The behavior is the verb or observable action/behavior that describes what
the learner (audience) will be able to demonstrate, perform, or exhibit after
the instruction.
This is the heart of the objective and MUST be
measurable
observable (visible or audible)
specific
Examples:
Be able to dance.
Be able to interview.
Be able to paint a picture of a mountain.
In each of these examples you can observe behavior.

If a statement does not include an observable, visible, or auditory behavior or performance,
then it isn't yet an objective.
Therefore, you should modify your objectives until it answers the question, "What will the
learner be DOING when demonstrating achievement of the objective?“
Here are a couple of poor examples:

Be able to understand mathematics.
Develop an appreciation of music.
If you apply the question above, what would somebody be doing if they were
"understanding" mathematics or "appreciating" music? There's really no way to observe
"understanding" or "appreciating" since both of those statements describe abstract states
that are not directly observable.
C. Conditions
Conditions are the circumstances (under commands, materials, directions,

etc.) which the objective must be completed.
All behavior relevant to intended student learning outcomes can best be

understood within a context of the conditions under which the behavior is to
be performed or demonstrated.
The location of the condition component in an objective may be at the

beginning of the sentence or after the behavior component.

C. Conditions
What will the learners be expected to use when performing (e.g., equipment,
tools, forms, calculator, charts, etc.)?
What will the learner be allowed to use (or not use) while performing (e.g.,
checklists, notes, textbook, or other study aids)?
What will be the real-world conditions under which the performance will be
expected to occur (e.g., on top of a flagpole, under water, in front of a large
audience, in a manufacturing plant)?

C. Conditions
Examples:
Given a case study, diagram, clinical problem....
After completing the reading....
After participating in a PowerPoint workshop....
Using the course textbook and any online material…
Given a standard set of tools and a malfunctioning motor...
Using a metric ruler...
Given a set of whole numbers...
In the presence of an irate customer...
Without the aid of class notes...
Using only a screwdriver...
Given a fully-functioning video camera...
Given a list of chemical elements...
C. Conditions
Notice there is no mention of the description of the instruction that precedes

the initiation of the behavior.
The instruction that leads to the behavior should never be included in the
actual objective.

D. Degree
The degree describes the degree of measurement, the standard, or criteria

that the learner must achieve to demonstrate an acceptable performance.
It describes how well the behavior must be performed to satisfy the intent of
the observable behavior.
In other words, what degree of accuracy does the learner have to demonstrate
in order that his/her performance will be judged as proficient or mastered the
objective?

D. Degree
The level of achievement indicating acceptable performance or mastery of the
objective may include the following:
• To a degree of accuracy; e.g., 90%.

• To a stated proportion; e.g., 3 out of 5 or a minimum of 3.
• Speed - within a given period of time; e.g., within 3 minutes.
• According to the information given in the text, lab manual, lecture, notes.
• In compliance with criteria presented by the instructor; e.g., scoring Proficient or better
on the scoring rubric for the assignment.
• In accordance with recommendations of some external organization or authority; e.g.,
in compliance with all ISTE standards.

The Putting it all together
What is the intended result of instruction for the learner? Objectives should
communicate expectations and learning outcomes to both the learner and
teacher answering these three questions:
Who is learning?
What should the learner be able to do?
Under what conditions?
How well?
Well-written behavioral objectives make development of assessment and
instructional activities an easy job.
If any of the following conditions occur, the objective should be rewritten:
you cannot develop assessment measures.

you are having a difficult time specifying instructional activities.
you find any exceptions or loopholes as a way of meeting the objectives.
Learning to write instructional objectives that describe what you want takes
patience and practice.

Here's an example of an objective containing all four components:
Students will tell the time represented on an analog clock to the nearest
minute.
“Students” tells the audience,
"tell the time" represents the behavior,

"analog clock" represents the condition,
"to the nearest minute" represents the degree

Inadequate: The students will learn about objectives.

Better: After completing the online objectives tutorial, the student will construct five well-
written instructional objectives with all four critical components scoring Proficient or better
on the scoring rubric.
Inadequate: The students will solve addition problems with 80% accuracy.
Better: Given two numbers not written in equation form, the students will place the
numbers in equation form and add them together with some borrowing with 80% accuracy

Alternative Names for Objectives
Learning Objectives
Behavioral Objectives
Outcomes
Enabling Objectives
Terminal Objectives
Educational Objectives
Curriculum Objectives
Performance Objectives
Operational Objectives
Instructional Objectives
Intents
Competencies
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

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MS Applied Linguistics (Humanities) – Spring 2020

Upon completion of week 11 & 12 you will be able to:

1. Understand the importance of aims and objectives

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

If we use the analogy of a journey,

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

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

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

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

The following statements describe the aims of teaching English

• The following are examples of aim statements from different kinds of

Aim statements are generally derived from information gathered during a

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

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

The following, for example, are not aims:

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

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

• Objectives generally have the following characteristics:

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

The advantages of describing the aims of a course in terms of

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

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

The characteristics of objective statements are:

Objectives are therefore normally produced by a group of teachers or planners

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

Objectives describe a learning outcome.

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

Objective should be consistent with the curriculum aim

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

Objective should be precise.

This is seen in the following objective for a conversation course:

A more precise objective would be:

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

Objectives should be feasible

The following objective is not attainable in a 60-hour English course:

The following is a more feasible objective:

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

Steps towards writing effective learning objectives:

1.Make sure there is one measurable verb in each objective.

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

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

• Measurable objectives enable you to observe and determine how well

• Instructional objectives contain four components: the Audience, the

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

This is often written "the learner" or "the student"; however, it could be

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

In each of these examples you can observe behavior.

Here are a couple of poor examples:

Conditions are the circumstances (under commands, materials, directions,

All behavior relevant to intended student learning outcomes can best be

The location of the condition component in an objective may be at the

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

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

Notice there is no mention of the description of the instruction that precedes

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

The degree describes the degree of measurement, the standard, or criteria