Learning goals

You are learning to:

• create personal goals to become a successful and confident language learner
• monitor progress toward achieving goals
• practice writing using complex sentences

Success criteria

I can:

• be motivated and purposeful in my learning by setting learning-related goals that connect to the characteristics of successful and confident language learners
• use reflection and self-assessment to monitor my progress toward achieving my learning goals
• communicate using complex sentences

Introduction

Welcome to ENL1W!

This course is designed to help you become a successful and confident language learner. You will explore the characteristics that language learners possess and engage in a variety of learning activities to develop them. Throughout this course you will read, watch, and listen to a wide variety of texts and create a variety of texts.

As you read, listen to, and view texts, you will explore their creators’ voices, identities, and stories. At the same time, you will build your foundational literacy skills, critical listening skills, and the skills and knowledge we need to understand texts.

You will learn to use different types of texts, including written, oral, and digital, to effectively communicate meaning, using the texts as mentor texts as part of the process.

Now that you know texts can take multiple forms and include multiple modes, such as a short story, novel, video game, podcast, film, or television series, consider the following question.

In this first unit, Exploring My Voice, you will develop your understanding of the factors that impact one’s ability to be understood. Understanding motivations and goals supports your progress toward becoming a successful and confident language learner. Using mentor texts as well as texts you will create, you will explore methods of effective, and creative, communication. You will examine factors such as bias and tone and determine how they can be developed and used to communicate for different purposes and audiences. The unit will conclude with an activity that shows your unique voice as a creator and communicator of texts.

In this learning activity, you will establish individual goals and build routines for monitoring progress toward accomplishing them. At the same time, you will establish the goals you will accomplish in this course.

That may seem like a lot of work, but don’t worry! You will be guided through each activity and expectation.

Literacy has been identified as a basic human right. It is a powerful tool that can transform individuals and societies. The following quote from former Secretary-General of the United Nations, Kofi Annan, speaks to the power of literacy.

Literacy is a bridge from misery to hope. It is a tool for daily life in modern society. It is a bulwark against poverty and a building block of development, an essential complement to investments in roads, dams, clinics and factories. Literacy is a platform for democratization, and a vehicle for the promotion of cultural and national identity … For everyone, everywhere, literacy is, along with education in general, a basic human right … Literacy is, finally, the road to human progress …”

— Kofi Annan

After examining the previous quote, consider the following questions.

In this course, you will refine your skills in collaboration by sharing your work with friends, peers, or family members, when possible.

Think about all the ways that students could use non-verbal communication skills to demonstrate that they are being active and effective listeners to their peers, friends, or family.

Active and effective listening can involve the following aspects of non-verbal communication:

• Eye contact – Make eye contact to engage the audience.
• Facial expressions – Use different facial expressions to show engagement and interest with an audience.
• Body movements and gestures – Display different body language to show engagement and to communicate meaning. For example, a nod indicates “yes.”

Consider the people who make you feel understood and comfortable when you’re talking with them. What can you do to help others feel understood and comfortable?

In this learning activity, you will also focus on the following grammar goal.

Acknowledgements (Opens in a new tab)

Learning goals

Setting a starting point

One of the key characteristics of a successful and confident language learner is the ability to set learning goals and be purposeful and motivated in monitoring progress. To set meaningful goals, you will need to engage in some self-reflection during this course.

The quest to reach a new goal is not a straight path. We often hit roadblocks that force us to detour, back up, or try an entirely new route to our destination. Overcoming these obstacles and finding new pathways requires purposeful thinking and motivation. One way to ensure you can be purposeful and motivated is by engaging in ongoing reflection and self-assessment. A tool you will use to accomplish reflection and self-assessment is your Portfolio.

Creating goals

Setting goals is an aspect of self-directed learning. You will revisit and revise your goals throughout the course. To start, you can build your knowledge about what goal setting is, why it is important, and how to set meaningful goals. First, examine some learning goals and determine what makes a good example. You can use “yes” to determine good examples of learning goals, and “no” to identify statements that need improvement and would not make good learning goals.

Examine the following statements labelled as “yes” or “no” examples of learning goals and consider the following questions. What makes a good example of a learning goal? How could someone improve the statements labeled as “no,” so they become good learning goals?

Press the flip button to reveal if the statement is a “yes” or “no” example of learning goals. Use the arrow keys to navigate between cards.

Creating a learning goal criteria!

Putting it all together

As you work through the course you will be given opportunities to revisit these goals and assess your progress toward achieving them.

The power of community

Whether you’re in school, working independently online, or working on a personal project, it’s likely that you’ll need collaboration with others to be successful.

Conclusion

In this learning activity, you explored the vision and goals of the course and aligned them with your own strengths and areas of growth to create a set of personalized goals that you will aim to accomplish by the end of the course. Similarly, you explored the importance of collaboration.

In the next learning activity, you will continue some of the self-reflection that you began in this learning activity as you engage in a larger examination of bias and the role it plays in our ability to understand and be understood.

Read the following document entitled Transferable Skills Outline (Opens in a new tab) to explore the framework and the descriptors for each skill. Download, print, or copy the information in the document into your notes - you'll refer to it in each unit.

Note the transferable skills that you think you will develop in this course. Throughout this course, you should revisit these skills to reflect on which ones you are developing.

As you continue through this unit and the rest of the course, keep your notebook updated and be mindful of opportunities to apply and develop transferable skills.