LANGUAGE LEARNING AND TEACHING: LEARNING OBJECTIVES Diseño y Desarrollo curricular I Asunción Sanchez Villalón Dec. 2010 LEARNING OBJECTIVES 1.What is it that learners have to learn or acquire? 1.1. Variation in objectives in relation to the Framework 1.2. Types of objectives in relation to the Framework 2. The processes of language learning: 2.1. How do learners learn? 2.2. What can each kind of Framework user do to facilitate language learning? What is it that learners have to learn or acquire? • “The aims and objectives of language learning and teaching should be based on an appreciation of the needs of learners and of society, on the tasks, activities and processes that the learners need to carry out in order to satisfy those needs, and on the competences and strategies they need to develop/build up in order to do so” • “For the purposes of representing or steering the progress of language learners, it is useful to describe their abilities at a series of successive levels”. Variation in objectives in relation to the Framework “Curriculum Design in language learning implies choices between kinds and levels of objectives” “Each of the major components of the model presented may provide a focus for learning objectives and become a specific entry point for the use of the Framework”. Types of objectives in relation to the Framework “Teaching/learning objectives may be conceived in terms of … • the development of the learner’s general competences”  his/her declarative knowledge,  skills & know-how (how to learn)  to develop his or her personality (how to be) •“the development of communicative competence with linguistic, pragmatic & sociolinguistic components •“the better performance in one or more specific language activities, as a matter of  reception,  production,  interaction  mediation” • “optimal functional operation in a given domain     public, occupational, educational personal” The processes of language learning Acquisition or learning? Acquisition : “untutored knowledge and ability to use a non-native language resulting either from direct exposure to text or from direct participation in communicative events” Language learning “may be used as the general term, or confined to the process whereby language ability is gained as the result of a planned process, especially by formal study in an institutional setting” How do learners learn? “The most important thing a teacher can do is provide the richest possible linguistic environment in which learning can take place without formal teaching” ”Teachers and their support services will follow more eclectic practices, recognising that learners do not necessarily learn what teachers teach and that they require substantial contextualised and intelligible language input as well as opportunities to use the language interactively” What can each kind of Framework user do to facilitate language learning? “The language teaching profession forms a ‘partnership for learning’ made up of many specialists in addition to the teachers and learners most immediately concerned at the point of learning” This information was retrieved from the CEFR at http://www.coe.int/t/dg4/linguistic/cadre_en.asp Some activities designed at our ITALab Website • LangObjectivesActivities.doc A. Sánchez Villalón, Máster Secundaria. UCLM. Dec, 2010