Despite the large number of informative materials available for goals and objectives, many people do not know the difference between the two concepts. According to the Oxford Dictionary, goals are those things we hope to achieve, and, here one perfect synonym for the word goal is aim. Objectives, by the same dictionary, are defined as things we are trying to achieve. At first glance, there seems to be no clear-cut difference between the two notions. However, the two definitions do not share the same meaning because one of them uses the verb hope whereas the other employs the verb try. The latter of the two verbs is a little more specific than the former and basically this is what renders the difference between goals and objectives.
Specific literature will set some kind of boundary between goals and objectives by specifying that the former are broader than the latter and that the same ones are viewed by specialists as general intentions rather than precise ones. If we were to analyze goals and objectives from the perspective of criteria related to the level of understanding and formulating them, goals are more abstract and seem less tangible than objectives. To illustrate these differences, we can think of goals and objectives from the point of view of teaching grammar material in schools. The goal of the lesson may be for the students to gain the ability to use correctly past tense simple (at least in the case of some verbs that you are to focus on during that class). The specific objectives would be several, perhaps, such as: the students identifying whether the verbs are regular or irregular, adding ed or using the second irregular form of the verb depending on the case, using the correct word order depending on whether they are formulating a statement or a question, adding the auxiliary did in questions, adding the auxiliary did in negative statements, and so on.
As it may become obvious from this example, we can differentiate between goals and objectives in that the former are more general while the latter refer to specific behaviors that help in the process of achieving the former. In other words, objectives can be viewed as the specific steps one needs to take in order to meet a goal. Furthermore, objectives are measurable while goals are much harder to measure. You can give a test and check whether your students make use of the specific behaviors you have required from them; but it would be a whole lot more difficult to verify whether the goal has been fulfilled without checking and measuring the achievement of objectives. That is why courses of foreign languages have periodical testing which measures the achievement of objectives. However, official examination at the end of courses will test proficiency, that will be measured in terms the broader goals.
