Define what curriculum aims of the curriculum are and how they guide the development of educational programs. Differentiate between various types of curriculum objectives, such as cognitive, affective, and psychomotor objectives. Assess how well curriculum's aims align with the specific objectives set for a particular educational program. Demonstrate the practical application of curriculum aims and objectives in designing, implementing, and evaluating educational curricula.

1. Lecturer: Mr. VATH Vary
Phone: 017 471 11 7
Email: varyvath@gmail.com
Chapter 6:
Curriculum
aims and
outcomes

2.  In this chapter, we will consider another crucial dimension of
decision making in curriculum planning: determining the goals
and outcomes of a program.
 We will also distinguish between aims, objectives, learning
outcomes, and competencies.
 These are generally derived from information gathered during a
analysis.
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3. Introduction
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• Early planners of English language courses
saw the purpose of language teaching as self-
evident. It was sufficient to state that the goal
of a course was to teach English.
• However, Communicative Language
Teaching (CLT) and the English for Special
Purposes (ESP) movement argued that this
approach was inadequate and that in order to
teach English it was necessary to find
answers to much more specific questions:
• What kind of English?
• At what level of proficiency?
• And for what purposes?

4. Introduction
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• Needs analysis seeks to
provide answers to the
above questions.
• Situation/Environment
analysis seeks to identify
the role of contextual
factors in implementing
curriculum change.

5. Introduction
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 Several key assumptions about
learning outcomes underlie
approaches to goal setting in
language teaching:
 People are generally motivated to
pursue specific goals.
 The use of goals in teaching
improves the effectiveness of
teaching and learning.
 A program will be effective to the
extent that its goals are sound and
clearly described.

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Goals (aims), Objectives, Outcomes and
Competencies
What
students
will learn ...

7.  Aims: are a statement of a general
change that a program seeks to bring
in learners.
 They are the general statements of the
long-term purposes of the course or
program.
 Objectives are a more specific and
concrete description of purposes.
They are specific ways in which goals
be will achieved.
 If we use the analogy of a journey, the
destination is the goal; the journey is the
course.
 The objectives are the different points you
pass through on the journey to the
destination.
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Goals (aims) and Objectives

8. Course
Rationale
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The most general
statement of the aims of
a course is often part of
course rationale:
 a brief description of the
reasons for the course
and
 nature of the course.

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This course is designed for working
adults who wish to improve their
communication skills in English in
order to improve their employment
prospects. It teaches the basic
communication skills needed to
communicate in a variety of different
work settings. The course seeks to
enable participants to recognize their
strengths and needs in language
learning and to give them the
confidence to use English more
effectively to achieve their own goals.
It also seeks to develop the
participants’ skills in independent
learning outside of the classroom.
http://www.ru
pp.edu.kh/ifl/
english/?pag
e=Course%2
0Description
Course title:
Effective
Communication
Skills

10. Course
Rationale
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It seeks to answer the following
questions:
1. Who is this course for?
2. What is the course about?
3. What kinds of teaching and
learning will take place in the
course?
4. What are the assessment
strategies used to determine the
course outcome?
 The course rationale answers these questions by
describing the beliefs, values, and goals:
 that underlie the course and
 which provide a succinct statement of the
course philosophy for anyone who may need
such information, including students,
teachers, and potential clients.

11. Course
Rationale
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 Purposes of Course
Rationale:
 Guide the planning of the
various components of the
course;
 Emphasize the kinds of
teaching and learning the
course should exemplify;
 Provide a check on the
consistency of the various
course components in terms
of the course values and
goals

12. Aim
Statements Aim Statements provide a
general description of the intended
outcomes of the course.
Their functions are as follows:
To provide a clear definition of the
purposes of a language program.
To provide guidelines for teachers,
learners, and materials writers.
To help provide a focus for instruction.
To describe important and realizable
changes in learning.
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13. A primary School English course:
 To enable children to communicate effectively, both in
speech and writing, in everyday situations to meet the
demands of society.
 To help children acquire good reading habits to
understand, enjoy, and appreciate a wide range of texts,
including the literature of other cultures.
 To develop children’s ability to express themselves
imaginatively and creatively.
A business English course:
 To develop basic communication skills for use in
business contexts
A course for hotel front desk staff
 To develop the communication skills needed to answer
and respond appropriately to guest enquiries
A course in English for tourism:
 To prepare students to communicate in English at a
basic level for purposes f travel and tourism.
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14.  Aim statements, however, should not be confused with
descriptions of the activities learners will take part in.
 For these to become aims, they need to focus on the changes in
the learners that will result.
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Activities AIMS
• Students will learn about
about business-letter
writing in English.
• Students will study
listening skills.
• Students will practice
composition skills in
English.
• Students will learn
English for tourism.
• Students will learn how to write effective business
business letters for use in the hotel and tourism
tourism
• Students will learn how to listen effectively in
conversational interactions and how to develop better
better listening strategies
• Students will learn how to communicate information
information and ideas creatively and effectively
through writing.
• Students will be able to communicate in English at a
English at a basic level for purposes of tourism.

15. Objectives
(instructional
objectives or
teaching
objectives)
Objectives are statements of specific
changes a program seeks to bring about
and is developed by breaking aims down
into their different components.
describe what aims seek to achieve
in terms of smaller learnable and
teachable units and provide the
basis for the organization of
teaching activities;
describe learning in terms of
observable behavior or
performance
By achieving the objectives, the
goal will be reached.
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16. MR. VATH VARY
In relation to an aim such as ‘Students will learn how
to understand lectures given in English’, objectives
such as the following could be described:

17. Characteris
tics of
Objectives
Objectives describe an intended
learning outcome.
 Expressions: will study, will learn about, will
prepare students for are avoided because they
do not describe the result of learning but
rather what students will do during a course.
 Objectives can be described with phrases like
will have, will learn how to, will be able to.
 Objectives should be consistent with the
curriculum aim. Only objectives that
clearly serve to realize an aim should be
included.
 Students will learn how to write effective business
letters for use in the hotel and tourism industries
 Faulty objective: The students will develop the
ability to take part in discussions.
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18. Characteris
tics of
Objectives
Objectives should describe what
learners will do as a result of
instruction. They focus on the learner
rather than what the teacher will do.
 Example: Objective describes the
teacher’s behaviour rather than a
learning goal:
To develop the learner’s confidence
in speaking and listening.
 Example: objective describes course
content rather than learning outcomes:
To provide input in real, relevant,
and realistic English.
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19. Characteri
stics of
Objectives
Objectives should be precise.
 Students will know how to use useful
conversation expressions.
 More precise objective would be:
 Students will use conversation expressions for
greeting people, and opening and closing
conversations.
 Objectives should feasible. They should describe
outcomes that are attainable in the time available
during a course.
 Unattainable 60-hour English course: Students
will be able to follow conversations spoken by native
speakers.
 More feasible objective should be:
 Students will be able to get the gist of short
conversations in simple English on topics
related to daily life and leisure.
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•an understanding of the
nature of the subject matter
being taught (e.g., Listening,
speaking, reading, writing,
business English, academic
essays);
•an awareness of attainable
levels of learning for basic,
intermediate, or advanced-
level learners;
•the ability to be able to
describe course aims in terms
of logical and well-structured
units of organization.
Objectives
are based
on ..

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24. Learning
Outcomes What can the
learner actually
do as a
demonstration of
what he or she
has learned?
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25. Learning
Outcomes
 Outcomes identify the observable results
of learning, that is the kinds of
performance or language practices that
the learner can demonstrate at the end of
a unit of learning.
 Statements of learning outcomes are
hence examples of the realization of
objectives expressed in the form of "can
do" statements.
 Aim: Students will learn how to understand
lectures given in English.
 Objective: Students will be able to follow an
argument, theme, or thesis of a lecture and
write key points in note form.
 Learning outcome: Students can watch a 10-
minute TED talk and write accurately in note
form, the main points of the talk.
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26. MR. VATH VARY
Below are some further examples of objectives
and the learning outcomes that relate to them:

27. Competencies
 Competencies refer to the more detailed knowledge
and specific skills needed to achieve the outcome.
 The term competencies is also frequently used in
describing aims and outcomes and is sometimes used
in a similar way to objectives.
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28. MR. VATH VARY
Program
purposes
Aim = a
general
purpose
Objective = a
more specific
statement of
purposes
Learning outcome
= an example of
what the learner
can do as a result of
mastering the
objective and the
competencies
Competencies =
the knowledge
and skills
needed to
achieve the
purpose

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Examples of Learning Purposes

30. Standards Standards (also known as
benchmarks, core skills,
performance profiles, and target
competencies):
 Are descriptions of the outcomes or targets that
students should be able to reach in different
domains of curriculum content, including
language learning.
 describe the knowledge and skills of a discipline,
such as English, math, and reading, and reflect
what the planners and stakeholders of an
educational system believe are the essential
components of teaching and learning.
 describe in a general way the core content and
skills student should master, and these form the
basis for program development, teaching, and
assessment.
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31. Standards
Standards
are generally accompanied
by more specific
"indicators" or benchmarks
that "describe assessable,
observable activities or
behaviors that may be
performed to show the
standard is being met“.
These are often described
in terms of competencies.
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Example of a standard
relating to the development of reading
ability

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Example of a standard with related indicators in the domain of
oral language use:

34. Standards The use of standards in curriculum
planning thus involves the following
sequence of activities:
Identifying the domains of language
use the learners need to acquire
(e.g., reading, writing, listening,
speaking).
Describing standards and
performance indicators for each
domain.
Identifying the language skills and
knowledge needed to achieve the
standard.
Selecting teaching activities and
materials.
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35. CEFR The most widespread example of
backward design using standards in
current use is the Common
European Framework of Reference
for Languages (CEFR),
which is designed to provide a
"common basis for explicit
description of objectives, content
and methods of the study of
modern languages, within a wider
purpose of elaboration of language
syllabuses, curriculum guidelines,
examinations, textbooks' etc.
across Europe"
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https://help.cambridgeinternational.org/hc/en-gb/articles/115004446685-The-Common-European-
Framework-of-Reference-for-Languages-CEFR-

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The standards described for "conversation" in CEFR at levels 81 to C1
are described as follows (Council of Europe 2001, 76):

38. CEFR CEFR Levels in standards
frameworks:
often have practical value in that
they enable learners to have a
sense of progression from course
to course or from year to year.
Thus, teachers and materials
developers are frequently
required to match their teaching
to specific levels on the CEFR or
other scales, and testing is
similarly often linked to the
standards.
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