In this blog, NGL academic and training development manager Alex Warren looks at how teachers can best incorporate a visible learning philosophy into the English language classroom to empower students to reach their full potential.
Before we get going, take a moment to pause and reflect. What do you think contributes most to successful learning outcomes in the English language classroom?
Got your answer? Then read on.
Ask any teacher that question and you’ll get a range of responses – from high engagement and motivation to effective classroom management and relevant inputs and outputs. In his research, John Hattie looked at 195 “effects” on classroom learning and their levels of impact, finding that there’s no single solution to what makes a successful language learning classroom and successful learner.
However, Hattie’s research also reveals that the largest “effects” were linked directly to the teacher themselves, alongside teaching and learning methodologies. So, just in case we didn’t know how important our role was before, we most definitely do now.
Hattie’s model of “visible teaching and learning” pinpoints the most impactful approaches, methodologies and strategies to be used in the classroom. How can we best apply visible learning strategies in the language classroom to help drive successful outcomes? Here we look at three ways to facilitate visible learning.
Clear and Achievable Learning Outcomes
Imagine embarking on a journey in your car, having no idea where you’re headed. How you would feel as you’re driving along? Lost, anxious, confused?
Just as a destination gives a journey purpose, clear learning outcomes provide students with a sense of direction and purpose in their learning. But writing clear lesson outcomes and framing them in the right kind of language is an art in itself. Simply telling students that “today we’re going to learn the past simple” isn’t helping anybody. Language teachers should instead set clear communicative goals such as, “by the end of the lesson you’ll be able to talk about what you did at the weekend/last week/on your last holiday.” It’s more tangible, it’s more specific and it’s more relevant, instantly giving the lesson a clear goal while making it more motivating for learners.
Other tips: avoid jargon and meta-language where possible and use action verbs to describe the outcomes. Bloom’s revised taxonomy is a great place to start with this, with each level providing different verbs in which to frame the outcome.
However, these goals should not just be mentioned to students at the start of the lesson. They should be highlighted throughout so students can link what they are doing directly to the lesson outcomes, making activities more visible and relevant. And in the same way you start a lesson highlighting outcomes, you should also end the lesson by referring back to them, making learner outcomes visible to the students and showing what they have achieved.
Success Criteria
Stop and think again for a moment. Have you ever spent a lesson teaching certain vocabulary or grammar and finished the lesson with a communicative task to get your students actively using the target language, only for them to do everything but? If we’re being honest with ourselves, we’ve all had it happen to us. Multiple times. Which is exactly where success criteria come in.
Success criteria are wonderful things and I wish I was using them 20 years ago, giving greater resonance and focus to lesson outcomes for learners. The clue is very much in the name — they are “a list of features that a teacher wants the learners to include in their work during the course of a lesson” (Hattie, 2012). By explicitly defining what’s required for a task, we show students know exactly what success looks like, while also giving them the tools to self and peer assess and monitor their progress. Again, making their learning visible.
Take this task from Outcomes Upper Intermediate, for example, and look at the kind of success criteria that could be included.
• Include details of where you were, what you were doing and what happened
• Use the past simple (with correct –ed pronunciation)
• Use at least 2 examples of the past continuous
• Use the past perfect at least once
• Use at least 3 different time linkers
• Use at least 5 new words/expressions from the lesson
• Make the story more dramatic by using modifiers and structures from the useful language box
• Speak for at least 60 seconds
Success criteria can be flexible depending on what you want to focus on. You ideally wouldn’t have more than 5-6 , but this can vary depending on level. Using “at least” with many of the criteria facilitates differentiated learning outcomes, with stronger students being encouraged to do more and weaker students doing the numbers stated.
A final word on success criteria — try to involve the students in creating them wherever possible. Not only does this encourage them to be active participants in the process, but it also gives them a sense of ownership over their learning and helps develop a growth mindset, fuelling learner autonomy.
Your turn!
Take a look at this writing task from Outcomes Upper Intermediate (you can download the full lesson and unit on the website here). What success criteria would you add to this assignment? Think of at least 5-6.
Formative Assessment and Visible Learning
The final strategy I want to touch on is formative assessment, which serves as a vital link to visible learning. Why? Because it shows students their levels of understanding, progress, and what needs to be done to improve at each stage of a lesson or unit. It also allows teachers to scaffold learning and bridge the gap between students’ current levels of understanding and desired learning outcomes.
During a lesson, there are multiple opportunities for teachers to incorporate formative assessment strategies. Take this lesson on first conditionals from Outcomes Pre-Intermediate. Even before opening the coursebook, you could incorporate a test-teach-test approach, asking the student to discuss some questions including the first conditional (without drawing their attention to it) to see if they are able to already use the target language.
In this lesson, the grammar is introduced through a guided discovery task, which is formative assessment in action. Asking concept checking questions and checking if students are ready to move onto a controlled practice stage using a traffic light system (green = “Got it!,” amber = “I think I’m ready,” red = “Can we go over it again?”) also makes learning visible.
Providing students the opportunity to reflect on their learning at the end of a lesson or unit of work allows them to synthesize what they’ve learned in a broader view and see the bigger picture. This kind of self-reflection could be facilitated by using “Can Do” statements aligned to the unit outcomes or more of discussion-based reflection, as in the example below.
Formative assessment and visible learning can be supported outside of class time too, using online platforms like National Geographic Learning’s Spark platform. Allowing students to complete assignments online with instant feedback and access to their grades increases the visibility of their learning, boosting engagement and motivation. This data is also available through the Gradebook feature of Spark, allowing teachers to have insight into whole-class and individual student performance — making learning visible to everyone.
Watch the recording of Alex’s webinar, “Visible Outcomes – Making Language Learning Visible and Successful,” to explore more ways to put these visible learning strategies into practice and see a demo of the Spark Gradebook!
While visible learning strategies may not be the sole path to achieving successful learning outcomes, when integrated with other effective teaching practices, they can play a crucial role in enhancing student engagement, understanding and success in the language classroom.
Call to Action
Which visible learning strategies are you going to try out in your classes to drive successful learning outcomes?
For more information about Outcomes, Third Edition, please visit www.eltngl.com/outcomes
Further Reading
- A Guide to Visible Learning, Hattie, Routledge
- Visible Learning for Teachers, Hattie, Routledge
- Visible Learning – the Sequel, Hattie, Routledge
- 10 Mindframes for Visible Learning, Hattie & Zierer, Routledge
- https://visible-learning.org/hattie-ranking-influences-effect-sizes-learning-achievement/
- https://visible-learning.org/2013/02/infographic-john-hattie-visible-learing/
- https://osiriseducational.co.uk/blog/latest-research/visible-learning-infographics/
