Following from the 1st instalment of this article, for part 2 Marcin Lewandowski summarises the importance of setting goals in the English language classroom.
Whose goals?
However, setting goals should exist in tandem with autonomy. For goals to be more potent, they shouldn’t be imposed, suggested or implied by the teacher. Goals should be owned, i.e. learners themselves should determine what their weekly goals are. Setting your own goals makes it more probable that you will achieve them because they tap into your intrinsic motivation. You decide the what, the when and the how. According to the eminent American psychologist Edward L. Deci (1995:2) ‘[w]hen autonomous, people are fully willing to do what they are doing, and they embrace the activity with a sense of interest and commitment’. Choosing your own goals and deciding when to complete them puts you firmly in charge of your own learning. Suddenly you realise that you’re perfectly capable of organising your own learning activities, which leads to greater autonomy in the future. Autonomy, it seems, begets autonomy begets…
Goal setting doesn’t have to be a solitary affair either. In fact, sharing goals with peers can ‘spice things up’ for some by adding an element of social pressure and competitiveness whilst for others it will add a layer of peer support and collaboration. And because goals are shared when set, they can also be shared and celebrated when achieved. Sometimes I ask my learners to share with their peers some of the new words they’ve picked up or recommend an article, a programme or a book to others. Being able to ‘show off’ the new language will be very satisfying for them.
Ticked off?
Goals review lends itself admirably to such sharing. Preferably, this should be done consistently. Learners are more likely to complete a task when they know that someone will look at it. However, this self-review is also important because it allows learners to reflect on and measure their own progress. In my classes I ask learners to review their goals at least once a week and tick off the ones they’ve achieved.
Research tells us that each of these ticks represents an accomplishment which activates brain reward centres and releases dopamine (the pleasure neurotransmitter). This explains why achievement of goals feels so satisfying and because it feels good we want to repeat it. Positive outcomes reinforce positive learning habits and make us more persistent – we are more likely to engage in an activity that makes us feel good.
What’s the score?
The upshot of this goal setting experiment is that it works … at least for me … and my learners. Setting goals is beneficial in a number of ways. For example, in the classes where learners were asked to write their goals, they reported an increase in the amount of time they spent on practising their language skills outside of the classroom. Writing down goals gave them a focus and served as a reminder to practise. Goals were motivating and encouraged self-discipline. As this student explains:
“I knew that if I set myself a goal to learn new words, I had to do it.” – a sentiment shared by many students.
Thinking about goals on a weekly basis also encouraged self-reflection and evaluation of learners’ own strengths and weaknesses, as exemplified in the words of another student:
“I use English as much as possible but being in the course and writing the goals down made me aware to focus and concentrate on the grammar and how to speak clearer.”
As I said, it works.
And for some learners, writing personal goals meant that they achieved things they had never thought possible. For them, articulating written goals was a genuinely emancipatory experience.Thinking about goals allowed them to focus on things that are important, personal and meaningful: the act of writing them down meant that they committed to acting upon them. This is why they were able, for the first time since they arrived in the UK, to do things such as engage in an unassisted official conversation on the phone in English or visit a GP without the need for an interpreter. Seeing the pride in their eyes when they were sharing their achievements with the rest of the class was priceless!
So, should you try goal setting with your learners?
I’d say yes, although you may need to tailor the methodology to your specific context. My classes are typically between 2 and 3 hours long and take place twice a week, so it’s relatively easy for me to incorporate 15 minutes once a week for goal setting/review. If you don’t have the luxury of 6 hours of contact time with your learners every week, you can still implement goal methodology in your classes by having learners set their goals at the start of the course and by embedding fortnightly or monthly sessions in which your learners will be able to review their progress against their goals and set new ones. Or you could spend five minutes each week choosing a few random learners to share their goals. Whichever way you choose, setting goals will undoubtedly enhance your learners’ learning experience.
REFERENCES
Deci, E. L., and Flaste, R. (1995). Why we do what we do: Understanding self-motivation. New York: Penguin.
Locke, E. and Latham, G (2002). Building a Practically Useful Theory of Goal Setting and Task Motivation. American Psychologist, Vol. 57, No. 9, 705–717
McLean, A. (2003) The motivated school. London: Paul Chapman Publishing
Webb, C. (2016). How to have a good day. Macmillan