A new algorithm is proposed for training the multilayer perceptrion(MLP) in pattern classification problems to accelerate the learning speed. It is shown that the sigmoid activation function of the output node can have deterimental effect on the performance of learning. To overcome this detrimental effect and to use the information fully in supervised learning, an objective function for binary modes is proposed. This objective function is composed with two new output activation functions which are selectively used depending on desired values of training patterns. The effect of the objective function is analyzed and a training algorithm is proposed based on this. Its performance is tested in several examples. Simulation results show that the performance of the proposed method is better than that of the conventional error back propagation (EBP) method.