Behavioral objectives, Language standards & competency based language curriculum development

This article surveys the literature regarding the use of behavioral objectives in education and in foreign language instruction in particular. In the first part, it examines the roots of the behavioral objectives movement in both behaviorist psychology and in the scientific management movement of the 1920s. The justifications for the use of behavioral objectives and the corresponding criticisms are discussed. The next section devotes a small space to elaborate on the competency based program and the most realization of a competency perspective in the United States as the standard movement which seem to be behavioral objectives with the fresh paint of new terminology (River, 1991, P. 284). In detail, I will trace the evolution of standards movement as it relates to the other major performance-based movement: Objective movement and competency based education

Keywords:

behavioral objectives , language standards , competency based instruction , curriculum development