17.3.1. High priority of attitude goals

Most syllabuses or language programmes identify two sorts of goals. These can very roughly be described as the content goals and the attitude goals. The main difference between primary school and secondary school language work is the balance between these two kinds of goals.

Content goals are concerned with the elements of language and ways in which they are used. The parts of syllabuses that describe goals are usually arranged in one of the following ways:

• Structures: programmes are set out in terms of grammatical structures like the present continuous or negatives. Sometimes they just list the structures themselves, e.g., I like swimming/ dancing/ reading or I don’t/ can’t/ won’t.

• Topics and situations: in these programmes the work is arranged according to topics or situations like the family, at the supermarket. Sometimes the items to be covered are grouped according to whether they demand speaking, listening, reading or writing.

• Functions: here the focus is on what the learner can use the language for, so the things to be covered are listed under headings like expressing likes/ dislikes/ preferences, asking and giving directions, expressing the future.

Your own syllabus may reflect any of these approaches. In fact, many syllabuses adopt a pragmatic combination of all three. However, whatever form your syllabus takes, the content goals are concerned with the elements of the language and how the learners put them together to use them. That is to say, they are in essence content goals. There is, however, another very significant aspect to the syllabus, namely, the attitude goals.

Good syllabuses are not just concerned with content. They are also concerned with attitude and response. Sometimes these goals are assumed. Sometimes they are written. If they are written into the syllabus you will find phrases like:

• pleasure and confidence in exploring language;

• willingness to ‘have a go’;

• the children should want to and dare to communicate.

In other words, in addition to having goals which are concerned with the actual language elements the children learn, we also have goals which relate to the kind of learning experiences we set up and the relationships and atmosphere of the language classroom.

The balance between the attitude goals and content goals shifts as a child moves through the education system. In the later stages of a child’s education the content goals begin to dominate. Secondary teaching does not, or should not, lose sight of attitude goals, but as the formal examination system approaches, priorities lie very much with the content, i.e. the language items to be mastered.

Primary language work, in contrast, can give emphasis to the attitude goals. It should not lose sight of the content goals but at the same time give clear priority to promoting the attitudes and responses mentioned above, i.e. confidence, willingness to ‘have a go’, risk talking. At primary school we have more freedom to do this because most of us are not yet too tightly constrained by the content focus of the public examinations system. It can also be argued that we have a responsibility to give high priority to the attitude goals at primary level. After all, if we do not establish risk talking, confidence and general goodwill towards language learning at this early stage, our colleagues at secondary level will have a very difficult task ahead of them. In all subjects, not just in foreign languages, the learners’ response to the work is central to their later progress. In languages, however, this aspect is particularly crucial. This is because of the special of language.