Classroom Practice - Content and Language Objectives

Folks in the field of English Learner student achievement have been working with Content Objectives (what students will learn in a lesson) and Language Objectives (what specific language is required for the students to prove that s/he has learned what they’re intended to learn) for quite a few years now.

The primary questions are…

If you ask a student in your classroom:

• What are you learning?

• What do you need to do to prove you have learned that?

Will the answers to those questions be similar to the communicated objective?

Every student needs to answer that question with an understanding of what you, the teacher, wants as an outcome.

As educators, we need to find a way to:

• Communicate the objectives to our students in the way we know best

• Practice having them communicate them with their peers

• Work toward the goal of every student in our classrooms communicating these important objectives

It may be difficult in the beginning but integrating your objectives with each lesson is crucial to English Learner achievement. The more you do it, the more it becomes a part of your classroom culture!

Sam Nofziger, Ed. D.