We should encourage our students to set short term goals. I do this a few times a year, using different activities. This time, I divided the goals into 2. First, I asked my students to set goals that are not connected to ELL. I like Dave Stuart Jr’s term ‘long – term flourishing’ and decided to use his ‘back from winter break‘ SMART goal setting activity.
The second activity was for the students to focus on themselves as English language learners. I asked them to write down what is working and what they need to work on; a form of feedback I learnt from Jim Burke.
Next my students will go back to their goals and evaluate how they are doing.