6 Suggestions for Learner Goal-Setting
Ronna Magy

The beginning of a new school term provides students the opportunity to review, reflect on, and set learning goals (with the assistance of their instructors). By implementing learner goal-setting activities throughout the school term, instructors set the stage for developing a more conscious, involved, and self-directed student population. By assisting students with conscious goal-setting, instructors help students move effectively along their individual life paths.

What can instructors do to help students set goals, monitor progress, and reach their goals? How does implementing goal-setting build learner persistence and a connection to a broader school learning community?

Some goal-setting activities should be done near the beginning of a term, while others may be implemented throughout the term. Through the continuous activation and implementation of goal-oriented activities, goal-setting becomes a conscious part of the instructional process for both instructors and students. The result is that learners become more involved in the focus and direction of their own learning and that instructors build more connection with the needs, interests, and goals of their students.

Here are six suggested goal-setting activities instructors can use throughout the school year.

1. Build Goal-setting into Initial Classroom Lessons
   It is essential that instructors include goal-setting in the early part of a term. The first few weeks are best for initial goal-setting. With instructor guidance during the first few weeks of a term, students should establish general English learning goals as well as specific/realistic language learning goals that are limited to the term of the class. During the same time period, instructors should ask questions to determine each student’s educational, work, family and personal goals.
   
   
2. Help Students Establish Term Goals
   After implementing an initial needs assessment, help students establish their language learning goals for the term. These are time-limited goals. They may be set using both words and pictures. By having a class of students discuss their goals in pairs and groups and determine the steps to achieve them, instructors build students’ connections to the class community and, at the same time, support student persistence. Post student’s term goals on the walls of the classroom, or have students keep them at the front of their binders as reminders.
   
   
3. Embed Goal-setting in Ongoing Lessons
   Based on the information from the initial needs assessment, embed goal-setting activities into ongoing classroom lessons. Life skills topics (work, money, family, community, etc.) lend themselves well to goal-setting activities. Ask specific questions to guide students in determining which areas they need to work on. Have students make statements about their specific goals.
   
   
4. Encourage Successful Study Skills and Study Habits
   Students often come to class without pencils or paper. Many come without knowing how to study or learn, not having previously acquired the skills needed for academic success. Do an assessment of your students’ study skills and study habits to find out what they already know and what they need to learn about how to study.
   
   Good study skills help students:
   
   
   • organize, digest, record, practice, review and retain information; and
   
   
   • evaluate and reflect on what they have learned.
   
   Good study skills encourage students to track their own progress and assess their own strengths and weaknesses.
   
   
5. Promote Self-Reflection and Self-Monitoring
   Provide students with in-class time to reflect on and monitor their own learning. At the end of each class, review the main concepts covered. Ask students to tell you what they learned.
   
   
6. Create Follow up Activities to Check on Student Progress
   Establish biweekly goal support groups to help students monitor their progress in an ongoing way. During the term, plan time for students to meet in the goal support groups and discuss progress toward reaching their goals. Provide the groups with a set of structured interview questions.

Click here for a more detailed monograph (PDF format; 5 MB)on goal-setting, specific examples of goal-setting activities at beginner to advanced levels, and a list of interview questions to be used to check on student progress.

Conclusion

By incorporating learner goal-setting activities into classroom curriculum in various ways, instructors help students evaluate their own needs and interests and set achievable goals. Through interactive goal-setting activities, instructors build student connection to the class and broader school learning community, and support students in continuing their studies. By helping students set, monitor, and achieve their goals, instructors help students move more effectively along their individual life paths.