Teaching and Learning Tips

Goal Setting and Reflection on English Lessons

Last week I was lucky to become a part of a wonderful WizIQ webinar taught by Starr Sackstein. You can find her teaching blog here. The webinar was dedicated to using reflection as a tool on English lessons in high school. I would like to discuss it in a broader context, focusing on adult education. 
Teaching adults could be easier in some respects, however, the question of evaluation can become an issue. Adults learning in a private setting do not expect to have their work graded, however they quickly get discouraged when they don't see any "progress" in their studies. Sometimes, there is evident progress, but how do we make our students aware of their own learning processes?

As a rule, I ask my new students why do they want to learn English. Is there a particular purpose (business, academic, relocation)? I have decided to take these questions a step forward and transform them into an actual evaluation tool for myself and my students. Here are the steps:
- I create a Google Spreadsheet with a pre-set form:

	Student's reflection	Teacher’s notes
Information
Strategies
Skills
Time Invested

• I ask the students to brainstorm their study goals: what information, strategies and skills would they like to acquire? How much time can they invest into it (considering free time and financial aspects)?
• I "translate" the students' wishes into my own professional goals and particular tasks and ideas. Here's an example:

	Student's reflection	Teacher’s notes
Information	I want to be able to write job applications, tell about my experience	Grammar: Present Simple/Continuous, Past Simple/Continuous Vocabulary: terms related to the student's career, verbs Writing: Short paragraphs about past and present experience. Listening: Job Interview videos Reading: Cover letter samples
Strategies
Skills
Time Invested

• Finally, after accomplishing each study unit I ask the students to report on their progress using the same table. 

As a result, the students become aware of the learning processes they undergo, they learn to distinguish the types of different tasks and to see how they can benefit from performing them, and most importantly, they get the sense of moving from a milestone to milestone, which should keep their motivation at its peak.

Good studies!