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Viewing Realize the Importance of Setting Language Learning GoalsRealize the Importance of Setting Language Learning Goals
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By Ulle Rannut According to the questionnaires of new immigrants in Estonia, the main reason for learning the Estonian language is to be able to communicate and get a better paying job. However, they often forget their goals and lose motivation. As a result, after passing the course book, they find that they are still not able to talk and they still have the same lousy jobs. The results of an empirical study conducted by Edward Locke and Gary Latham in 1990 showed that specific, difficult goals consistently led to higher performance than urging people to do their best. According to Locke and Latham, goals have an energizing function. Setting a specific goal leads to better performance compared to setting an abstract goal (e.g., "I'm going to get a 95% on my next exam" vs. "I will try to do my best on my next exam"). It is important to identify your objectives for learning the language before you start, because different goals demand different strategies. There are many differences in expectations concerning language learning and teaching, for instance, in the way people measure their progress. In Estonia at the beginning of language courses, learners' language levels are tested in detail. However nobody asks them, "What are your goals? Why do you want learn the language? What do you want to do with it?" Thus, it is often the case that the original goal to learn a language in order to get a better job turns to something like "My goal is to pass the course book or test!" However, these two goals are totally different and a person who is able to pass the test successfully is not necessarily a good communicator, unless the test measures how successfully he communicates in his field, which is rarely the case. Thus, writing down one's goals is important, as it motivates the learner and fosters one's success. Dr. Philip E. Humbert says that high achievers always know precisely what they want, because they have written it down. Often, they write a short description of their goals every single morning as a personal reminder of their priorities and objectives. Dr. Humbert claims that the act of writing your goals down vastly increases your chance of success. You should imagine at first in which situations and in which way you would like to improve your language skills, how you would feel, and what it would look like after achieving this goal. Finally, you should contemplate how you are going to reach this goal and the steps you are going to take in order to achieve it. You have to set very specific, measurable, and realistic language goals. You should aim at a specific proficiency level and determine when you want to achieve it. You may set goals like "being able to understand and communicate in a grocery store without asking my wife's help" or "being able to find information about good job opportunities on the Internet in Estonia" or "having smooth conversation in Estonian with someone who makes a compliment concerning your perfect Estonian skills and offers you a well-paid job". Psychologists have found a variety of interactions between self-efficacy and goal-setting. When goals are self-set, people with high self-efficacy set higher goals than do people with lower self-efficacy. However, the research results (Lock and Latham, 1990) reveal that high goals lead to greater effort than low goals. People with high goals are more committed to assigned goals, find and use better task strategies to achieve their goals, and respond more positively to negative feedback than do people with low self-efficacy and low goals. It is important to know exactly how you are going to measure your progress and whether you have met your goals. For goals to be effective, people need feedback that reveals progress in relation to their goals. If they do not know how they are doing, they lose motivation and change direction, which means that they never accomplish their goals. If the goal is to learn 30 new words and phrases in a day and practice new skills in real life communication situations, learners have no way to tell if they are on target unless they know how many words they have learned and how they performed when trying to communicate. When people find they are below target, they normally increase their effort and find new strategies to perform better (Matsui, Okada, and Inoshita, 1983). However, in language classes sometimes even teachers don't know how many new words and phrases they are going to teach, how many words and phrases they have actually learned, and how students perform in real life situations after they have left the classroom. Too often teachers and students only count chapters in a course book instead of focusing on achieving their goals. Reflective learning means determining what we know, setting our own personal goals, establishing benchmarks, and reviewing and assessing our achievements. Summary feedback is a moderator of goal effects. Research reveals that the combination of goals plus self-evaluation is more effective than goals alone (Bandura and Cervone, 1983; Becker, 1978; Erez, 1977; Strang, Lawrence, and Fowler, 1978). About the Author: Ulle Rannut, PhD - Integration Research Institute. Article Source: A Language Guide - http://www.a-language-guide.com |
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