Language-Learning Objectives
A Language-Learning Objectives are descriptions of the condition of the learner which is supposed to be required in order to achieve the aims and which the learning-activities to be undertaken are designed to bring about. Aims may be – but are not always – overtly stated; objectives are always overtly stated, with huge variations in the degree of explicitness.
Generally, learning aims to do something that he could not do at the beginning of learning. It has not only physical activities (learning how to use a computer), but also mental activities (such as learning a foreign language). Furthermore, learning object must meet the needs of learners’ needs. Language-learning objective is one of the learning objects so as to gear towards own learners’ requirements. Language-learning objectives are described within boundaries of behavior like other learning-objectives. That’s why, the needs of the target group must be defined instead of describing an objective. For a language-learning objective, expression like “want to learn a foreign language” comes to the minds easily but this aspect is not sufficient to explain the needs of the target group.
In order to determine learning-objective for a target group, the circumstances that the learners will need the foreign language to use. In other words, stating the roles (topics) that user has to play or the environments in which the learner will engage. To illustrate, shopping in any store, asking some obvious questions (how much is it etc.)
After determining the situations, general purposes of the learner to use the foreign language must be specified. He may wish to express his own idea about any subject or he may wish to apologize can be examples as a general purpose. On the other hand, the learner will not be satisfied with give information about in the abstract, he will want to refer to persons, events, things in his expressions. Thus, he has to deal with a great number of notion during learning. For example, in the situation “shopping” he will handle with notions like to buy, discount, paying credit card or paying in cash etc. Except for these specific notions, there are also notions that can be used almost in any situation: existence/non-existence, past/present, before/after etc. So, the categories/topics and the notions according to categories/topics can be determined.
Having specified of language-learning objective, what actual language forms (words, sentences) should be determined by considering each of the language-functions. The last component of a language-learning objective is how well the learner will have to able to learn language, accomplish it.
