The new approach to Academic Review by the Quality Assurance Agency is characterized by an emphasis on the notion of 'alignment'. This refers to the process of bringing into line and linking to each other the key phenomena of aims, intended learning outcomes, methods of learning, assessment methods and tasks, criteria, marking and feedback to students (see Brown, 2001: 4-6). Biggs (1999) talks about 'constructive alignment', by which he means that learning is the result of constructive activity on the part of the student and that effective teaching aligns teaching methods and assessment procedures to the learning activity specified in the course objectives; all parts of the process should serve to support appropriate learning (Biggs, 1999: 11). The present module looks at this interrelationship in the field of language learning and teaching, but this section focuses specifically on the question of learning outcomes.

Although as linguists, we know that language acquisition is a highly complex process and that no learner ever owes all or even most of his or her language knowledge and proficiency to what goes on in the classroom, it is as important in language learning as it is any other discipline for manageable learning outcomes to be linked to appropriate methods of assessment so that students, colleagues and quality monitors can be clear about and have confidence in the standard and coherence of our modules. Learning outcomes denote the changes that have taken place in the student as a result of a particular learning process or experience. When writing learning outcomes it is a good idea to think in terms of what you hope students will be able to do once they have completed the course. The learning outcomes should serve as your outline for assessment, and with good ones you should be able to answer with ease the question 'How will I assess this?' If the answer is difficult to find, this may well mean you need to rethink the outcome and link it to specific, measurable evidence of competence. It is also important that all outcomes you include should be assessed in some way; they need not necessarily all be measured to the same degree, but if it is a significant element of the module, it deserves to be assessed. (See also sections 13.1.4.1 on validity and 13.1.4.5 on washback.)

Consider the following illustration, taken from a beginners' Spanish course aimed at non-specialist linguists:

These general outcomes (or 'objectives', as some institutions call them) are acceptable as far as they go, but they are not sufficient. There should also be a clear link between the outcomes that we propose to assess and the specific language (grammar, vocabulary, idiom) that students will require command of in order to demonstrate those outcomes. This does not always happen in HE at present. As Schmidt and O'Dochartaigh (2001: 43) note in their research into HE modern language programmes:

Within language-based modules there is frequently no attempt to establish any kind of thematic unity where vocabulary acquisition is concerned. Staff teaching different aspects of a module will often choose texts dealing with wildly different topics on a weekly basis, while someone teaching translation or essay-writing within a module may have no idea what topics are being discussed by the students in conversation classes. Thus students hop from pillar to post on a daily, even hourly basis, and the target language seems like a never-ending mass of vocabulary that they will never really succeed in mastering […]. There is a broad assumption in many degrees that by the end of a degree course a student 'knows the language', and therefore an exam based on any aspect of language can be thrown at the students. The assumption is probably unfair in all but the fewest cases.

Some may dispute this final point, arguing that a final exam in a modern language degree should indeed aspire to at least something approaching such a comprehensive assessment of linguistic ability. However, overall the argument is a sound one and the point well made that language courses and their various components need to be co-ordinated and their taught linguistic content linked as far as possible (it can never be entirely so) to clear learning outcomes. A truly coherent language degree programme would include blocks of lexical content, say four per year, relating to the type of general outcomes above, which would feature in coursework and in end-of-year assessments. This need not limit tutors to only this vocabulary but it would serve as indicative content, acting as a focus for students' learning and a framework for tutors' assessment.

In the same way, learning outcomes for grammar should be formulated for each phase of the programme, especially for the early stages of language learning. This is, in effect, what happens on ab initio or post-GCSE courses that employ textbooks with clearly structured grammatical content. Experience suggests it is unlikely to happen on post-'A' level language modules. Yet students have a right to know what knowledge and (broad) lexical areas they are expected to cover at each stage of their course. This need not limit able students who will, in any case, read and listen widely beyond the minimum requirements to extend their proficiency. But it will provide crucial guidance to other students on the anticipated learning outcomes of particular modules and will help the tutor to devise more appropriate assessment tasks.