Learning Goals and Objectives
In the process of teaching, there is hardly any stage nearly as important as that one of setting goals and establishing the objectives to be reached. Thus, the course of an entire lesson is being developed and certain standards for what students should know by the end of the classes are being set. Therefore, the given stage requires that the most essential aims be developed and the most necessary skills be taught to the students.
There can be no doubt that recognizing the messages in English, both written and spoken, is the merit of actual knowledge of the language. Hence, the skills which help to recognize the texts and the textual peculiarities can be considered the prior goal of the lesson. With that in mind, it can be suggested that the lesson should be focused on training the skills for comprehension of the English language and the ability to perceive the message in the shortest amount of time should be developed.
To start with, one must point out that four goals have been specified for the given lesson, which is enough for the classes to be engaging and informative, and at the same time prevents the classes from being overloaded with information. Keeping the students invested and allowing then to focus on a single issue is what can be achieved with the help of the following goals.
The first goal can be defined as phonological/phonetic awareness and phonics. To achieve this goal, in the given case, the WI DPI Standard (R6) is going to be used, which will represent the students’ ability to select and use all sorts of representation, including such types as listening, reading, viewing and visual representation. In addition, thinking strategies and techniques are going to be used.
As for the phonological ones, there must be three key objectives (Smit, 2004). The goal will concern the ability to recognize plural forms, which will demand not only learning the use of the two suffixes, but also the numeral rules concerning the change of the ending of the word. In addition, it will be necessary to provide the list of the exceptions. Hence, the second and the third objectives appear, namely, the skill of adding either –s or –es to the nous. In addition to the ability of adding the –es ending, the third objective will also require the skill to read the ending in the right way.
The second goal to remember about is the acquisition of the corresponding vocabulary. Indeed, learning the key terms concerning the topic must be in the top list the priorities. For this purpose, the WI DPI Standard (E2) will be utilized. The latter will supposedly help to evaluate the students’ ability to use the vocabulary in the corresponding situations. As for the second learning goal, it will involve such objectives as the ability to recognize multiple meanings of a word and to identify the homographs.
The ability to us the acquired skills fluently takes the third place and can be used according to the WI DPI Standard (R6). As it has already been mentioned, the given standard will allow to evaluate whether the students can select and use the corresponding representations. Making this goal achievable by a number of exercises, one will both help the students remember the new information and at the same time train the former to apply the obtained knowledge to a certain situation.
Despite the fact that, for the most part, the exercises are a simulation, the experience which students are going to get is truly priceless. The last, but not the least is the art of comprehension, which will be shaped according to the WI DPI Standard (R4). Once the given objective is achieved, the necessity to develop fluency by reading a large number of texts should be mentioned. Finally, the students will have to be able to identify such elements of the story as its characters and settings.
Alignment to Unit of Instruction
However, before the goals and objectives are set completely, certain tests should be run to check the viability and the significance of the given goals and aims. Therefore, it is highly required that the goals and objectives should follow the established standards. Once the smallest detail is wrong, the entire plan for the lesson gets out of the alignment, which is likely to lead to the most dreadful consequences. The students might not only fail to learn the necessary skills, but also to understand the rules in the wrong way, thus, being doomed to make mistakes repeatedly.
The key coincidences
As for the criterions which match the provided goals and objectives, the behavior peculiarities must be mentioned. It is obvious that the given goals are aimed at making the students feel more confident about their experience with the English language, which means that the criterion concerning the behavior has been met fully. Shaping the students’ attitude towards various situations is exactly what the given lessons will supposedly do (Baker & Westrup, 2003).
It is also important to add that the conditions for the given objectives are also solid enough. Despite the fact that the conditions may vary in the given case, their essence remains pretty much the same – in most cases, the key condition will be the necessity to recognize a certain sound or define a plural or a singular form.
Finally, addressing the criterion, one must mention that it is going to be answering a question with two alternative answers to choose.
The main discrepancies
However, there are also certain issues which require further discussion. On the one hand, the idea of offering the students the phonetics first, which is followed by their first grammatical experience seems rather wise. On the other hand, it seems highly unlikely that students will be able to focus both on the grammar and on the phonetics at once. Therefore, the limitations of the task completion will be predetermined by the personal specifics and abilities of the students.
Moreover, the criterions are worth reconsidering as well. Since the practice involves dealing with the pronunciation issues, the abilities of each student should be considered separately, which will probably create an obstacle to an objective evaluation of each of the students.
Conclusion
Thus, it is obvious that with the help of the above-mentioned objectives, the course of the lesson is going to flow in an orderly fashion and, which is even more important, the students are going to absorb more useful information, acquiring the necessary skills. Thus, the students understand the basics of the English phonetics. However, in order that the results of the lesson could meet all expectations, certain goals and objectives must be established and heir alignment with the accepted standards must be checked.
Once making sure that all the priorities are in line, a teacher can be certain that the results of the lesson are going to be more than satisfying. In the given case, it is obvious that the lesson is bound to be successful, since for the most part, the goals and objectives meet the standards and, therefore, provide a good foil for the lesson.
Reference List
Baker, J., & Westrup, H. (2003). Essential speaking skills. London, UK: continuum International Publishing Group.
Smit, B. A. (2004). Articulation and phonology resource guide for school-age children and adults. Stamford, CN: Cengage Learning.