Language Objectives: Examples for Every Subject (and Why SWBAT Isn't Enough)
Walk into almost any classroom in America and you will see it on the board: SWBAT. Students Will Be Able To. Solve two-step equations. Identify the causes of the Civil War. Explain photosynthesis.
Here is the question that changes everything: will be able to do it how? Silently, in their heads? Or out loud, in writing, in academic English, in front of other people?
That is the difference between a content objective and a language objective. SWBAT tells students what they will learn. A language objective tells them how they will use language to learn it, and for English Learners, that second sentence is the one that opens the door.
What Is a Language Objective?
A language objective names the listening, speaking, reading, or writing students will do while they master the content. It comes straight from the first component of the 'SIOP' framework, 'lesson preparation' , where every lesson pairs a content objective with a language objective, both written, both posted, both said out loud.
The simplest recipe: a language function (describe, compare, justify, summarize), plus the language students need (key vocabulary, a sentence structure), plus a support (a frame, a partner, a word bank).
Language Objectives Examples, Subject by Subject
Math.
Content: SWBAT solve two-step equations. Language: I can explain my solution to a partner using the words inverse operation, isolate, and variable, with the frame 'First I ____ because ____.'
Science.
Content: SWBAT model the water cycle. Language: I can write a description of the water cycle using the sequence words first, next, then, and finally.
Social Studies.
Content: SWBAT identify causes of the Civil War. Language: I can state a claim about the most important cause and support it aloud with the frame 'The evidence that supports my claim is ____.'
English Language Arts.
Content: SWBAT analyze a character's motivation. Language: I can discuss a character's motivation with my group using the words motive, conflict, and perspective, and respond to a classmate with 'I agree with ____ because ____.'
Notice the pattern. The content stays exactly as rigorous. The language objective simply makes visible the invisible work we were always expecting students to do.
Why SWBAT Alone Leaves Students Behind
A content objective assumes the language will take care of itself. For students still building academic English, it will not. They can understand the water cycle and still be unable to describe it. They can know the answer and still not have the first five words to say it. When we skip the language objective, we grade students on language we never taught.
A good language objective also does something quietly powerful: it connects students to the content, the language, and one another, because most language objectives worth writing put students in pairs and groups, using the words out loud.
Three Mistakes to Avoid
1. Writing 'students will discuss' and stopping there. Discuss using what words? With what support? Name them.
2. Treating the language objective as an ELL accommodation. It sharpens the lesson for every learner in the room.
3. Posting it but never saying it. Objectives work when students hear them, read them, and return to them at the end of the lesson to check: did we do this?
Experience It as a Learner First
Reading about language objectives is renting the idea. Writing them, using them, and feeling them work in a live model lesson is how you come to own it. That is exactly what we do in the 'English Learner Institute', a live, remote course where you experience every strategy as a learner before you use it as a teacher. You will leave writing language objectives in minutes, not meetings.
Start tomorrow: take one lesson, keep your SWBAT, and add one sentence that names how students will use language to get there. Then watch who starts talking.
