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Learner 2

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Learner 3

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Research has shown that it is not really the quantity of input that is important in learning but what the learner does with it. This is a point worth keeping in mind while preparing a lesson.

Another point to remember when planning is your own learning style. If you, the teacher, have the same learning style as a few of your learners, then you will be more predisposed to help them with their learning.

But what about the rest of the students who have different learning styles? You have to include activities that will stimulate their learning style too. This will make you a more effective teacher.

3. Learning styles and the implications for teaching

This exercise will take around 20 - 30 minutes.

3.1 Implications for teaching

In the first two sections of this unit you have talked about right-/left-brain dominance and learning styles.

What are the advantages of finding out your individual young learners' learning styles, both for you and for them? Write down as many ideas as possible.

When you have finished, open the Suggestions - learning styles resource and compare your ideas with the suggestions provided.

Then think about the implications of learning styles for teaching using theLearning styles and the implications for teaching resourcebelow.

3.1 Suggestions - learning styles

Here are some possible advantages of finding out your individual young learners' learning styles:

1. It shows your young learners that you care

2. You can then adapt your teaching techniques and methods

3. You can advise your learners on appropriate learning strategies, especially those older young learners between the ages of 12 and 14/15

4. You can help your learners to help themselves by being more able to learn and recall

5. You can increase your learners' motivation to learn

6. You can increase the success rate in learning

7. You can improve the efficiency of your own teaching.

3.1 Learning styles and the implications for teaching

Look at these two quotes on the primary learner and VAK (visual, auditory and kinaesthetic learning styles):

"Attending, concentrating and memorising are activities. Simply asking a child aged five or six to pay attention, concentrate, study, learn or remember is unlikely to bear fruit. Unless we embody the material to be learned and remembered in a task that makes sense to the child, one that involves objectives [s/he] can realise and that draws [his/her] attention 'naturally' to the elements we wish [him/her] to take in, our imperatives to concentrate, memorise or learn are bound to fail ... An example is given by Wood of children being asked to memorise the names of toy animals. If they are asked to point to and verbally label each animal, they are more likely to remember the names than when simply asked to remember the names without accompanying actions."

"They (primary learners) need physical movement and activity as much as stimulation for their thinking, and the closer together these can be, the better."

Brumfit, C., Moon, J. and Tongue, R. (1996) Teaching English to Children - from practice to principle. England: Longman

What do you think of these quotes? How realistic do you think they are for the average young learner and your classroom situation? Can you think of any problems?

3.2 What's your teaching style?

As teachers, we all have our own preferred learning styles, and these usually translate into preferred teaching styles.

However, we have to remember that we are working with young learners, who are mainly right- brained, visual and kinaesthetic in their learning styles.

Read the What's your teaching style? resource. Check your ideas in the Commentary - What's your teaching style? resource.

Once you have finished, post your ideas in the Your teaching style discussion in the Forum.

3.2 What's your teaching style?

Of course, it isn't always possible to incorporate all four learning styles - Visual, Auditory, Kinaesthetic and Left-brained - into every activity that you do. It’s a good idea, however, to try to get a balance in your lessons.

In the last part of the module you’re going to look at some different activities and the learning styles that they incorporate. For now, though, think more about your teaching style.

Look at the following statements and choose three which best describe you as a teacher:

1. I don't like fun or games in the classroom.

2. I use a lot of visual aids: pictures, the OHP, flashcards, etc.

3. I use my hands, face, gestures and body language when talking.

4. I am sensitive to noise and sounds in the classroom.

5. I insist on getting homework back on time; deadlines are very important to me.

6. I like explaining things in detail to my learners.

7. I give my learners lots of tests.

8. I use the cassette recorder a lot in class.

9. I get my learners to come up to the front of the class and show things or do board work.

10. I speak quite quickly because I want to get a lot done in the lesson.

11. I am imaginative and creative and believe in what my learners can do.

12. I say things like "I can't hear you ..." and "Please be quiet and listen to me."

When you have finished, read the Commentary - What's your teaching style? resource and check your ideas.

3.2 Commentary - What's your teaching style?

If statements 1, 6 and 7 best describe your teaching then you are left-brained in your style.

If you chose statements 2, 5 and 10 then you are a very visual teacher.

If you chose statements 3, 9 and 11 you are more kinaesthetic in your teaching.

You are probably more auditory in your teaching if sentences 4, 8 and 12 best describe you.

Of course, you may have chosen statements from two separate groups - this is quite possible.

As teachers, we all have our own preferred learning styles, and these usually translate into preferred teaching styles. However, we have to remember that we are working with young learners, who are mainly right-brained, visual and kinaesthetic in their learning styles.

If we want to teach them well, we have to use visual and kinaesthetic ways of teaching them! Or, as learning styles expert Rita Dunn says: "If the child is not learning the way you are teaching, then you must teach in the way the child learns."

Remember that as an adult and teacher you have the ability to adapt your teaching to suit the needs of your young learners but they can not change the way that they learn: none of us can!

What is your main teaching style? Do you tend to use more visual, auditory or kinaesthetic activities? Can you now see a link between the way you like to learn and the way you like to teach?

4

Learning styles in the classroom

This exercise will take around 20 - 30 minutes.

What kinds of tasks and resources can we use to activate different senses and appeal to different learning styles?

4.1 Classroom resources

First, think about the types of classroom materials you can use for visual, auditory and kinaesthetic learners.

Read Learning styles and classroom resources - Parts one and two resources to find out more.

Read more about how the teacher can use movement, gestures and expressions to engage learners and model positive behaviour in The teacher as a resource document.

4.1 Learning styles and classroom resources - Part one

Take a moment to think about the materials and teaching resources you can use to access visualyoung learners.

Now write down the resources and techniques you could use in your classes with your young learners to help auditory and kinaesthetic learning.

When you have made some notes, compare them with the ideas in Learning styles and classroom resources - Part two resource.

4.1 Learning styles and classroom resources - Part two

Check your ideas with the ideas in the table.

Remember! Teaching aids should be BIG ,c o l o u r f u l, funny, and above all, memorable!

For auditory learners you should think about your pace of speech, volume, tone of voice, intonation and stress.

Each young learner is unique and we must find the combination of strategies that suits them best.

Flashcards are an excellent resource for conveying meaning and practising new vocabulary. Go toLearnEnglish Kids where you can download hundreds of flashcards to use in class.

• LearnEnglish Kids

Read more about how the teacher can use movement, gestures and expressions to engage learners and model positive behaviour in the The teacher as a resource document below.

• Download the document

You have looked at the learning resources that support different learning modalities. In the next section you will look at various activities that are good for different types of learners.

4.2 Classroom activities

It is important that we include a good variety of multi-sensory tasks in our lessons to help children learn more effectively.

In the Learning styles and classroom activities exercise below you will analyse some common classroom activities and decide the sensory activation.

Once you have finished, read the commentary on choosing activities to fit different learning styles in the Learning styles and classroom activities resource.

Exercise - Learning styles and classroom activities

4.1 Learning styles and classroom activities

Which of the following teaching activities favour the different learning styles of your young learners?

Drag visual, auditory or kinaesthetic to the activity.

Learning styles and classroom activities

Which of the following teaching activities favour the different learning styles of your young learners?

Drag visual, auditory or kinaesthetic to the activity.

• Auditory

• Visual

• Kinaesthetic

4.2 Learning styles and classroom activities

It's important to provide practice in all the four language skills - listening, speaking, reading and writing - so that different types of learners are catered for.

Do remember, however, that you will do almost no writing with seven- and eight-year-olds, and a limited amount of reading - the reading you will do will probably be at a word or basic sentence level, nothing too complex. The older your young learners are, the more reading and writing you will introduce. Only expect children to do in English what they can do in their own language.

Furthermore, if you do a lot of silent reading and writing in class and little listening and oral work, you are favouring visual learners over auditory learners. It's vital to include a good balance of the skills.

Look at the lists below. Taking the skill of writing as an example, they show a variety of writing activities that cater to visual, auditory and kinaesthetic learners.

Because we don't do very much writing with younger young learners, most of the above activities are appropriate for the pre-teen and teenager age groups that you looked at in the First steps unit.

Now, using the list of written activities above as your example, choose one of the other three language skills – speaking, listening or reading - and write down suitable activities for visual, auditory and kinaesthetic learners.

Check your ideas in the next section.

5

Multi-sensory learning - vak

This exercise will take up to one hour.

5.1 Language skills and vak

You have seen how children tend to prefer one sensory channel over another when it comes to learning.

View some listening, reading and speaking activities for visual, auditory and kinaesthetic learners in the Language skills and VAK resource. You will notice that some activities apply to more than one type of learner.

How many of the activity types have you used in class? Where could you introduce more variety into your lessons?

5.1 Language skills and vak

Here are some listening, reading and speaking activities for visual, auditory and kinaesthetic learners. Notice that some activities apply to more than one type of learner.

Think back to some skills lessons you have done recently and look at the suggestions in the previous section and above. How many different options have you used? Have you tended to focus on particular learning styles i.e. visual, auditory or kinaesthetic? Where could you introduce more variety in future to help your young learners?

5.2 Teaching vocabulary and vak

Now that you’ve looked at the four language skills, what about vocabulary? There many different ways of presenting and practising vocabulary and different ways to help learners remember it.

By varying the type of learning activity you will address different learning styles and also help to make the vocabulary more memorable for your learners.

Read the Teaching vocabulary and VAK resource to find out more.

5.2 Teaching vocabulary and vak

Now that you've looked at the four language skills, think about vocabulary. There many different ways of presenting and practising vocabulary and different ways to help learners remember it. By varying the type of learning activity you will address different learning styles and also help to make the vocabulary more memorable for your learners.

Watch the following video showing two different techniques.

The first teacher elicits animal noises to help learners remember the word. The second uses drilling with varying intonation, speed and volume to present the vocabulary in an interesting and memorable way. Which of the three learning styles do you think these techniques appeal to?

Some other techniques you may use when teaching vocabulary are the following:

• noises on tapes

• pictures to elicit the words orally

• matching words to situations, definitions or pictures

• picture dictionaries

• translation

• mime or gesture

• a text with gaps and a list of words.

Look at the activities above and try to decide which type of learner (V, A or K) each activity would suit. The answers are not provided because you should be able to work this one out for yourself!

5.3 A multi-sensory approach to teaching

Having looked at the teaching implications, you will now focus on a variety of activities that were devised specifically for young learners.

Observe the demonstration lessons in the Multi-sensory activities - Parts one and two resources below and reflect on some of the management and planning issues involved.

5.2 Multi-sensory activities - Part one

Having looked at the teaching implications, now focus on a variety of activities that were devised specifically for young learners. In previous sections, you read about some activities that addressed more than one learning style. Picture dictation is one of these.

As you watch the Picture dictation video, think about the following questions:

• What size class could this be used with?

• Does the activity really address all three learning styles?

• What language could you focus on?

• What level of English do the students need to do this?

• How does Raymond finish the activity?

Picture dictation

What size class could this be used with?

Any size. Obviously the larger the class, the more difficult it will be to walk around and see all of the students' work but there are no limitations in terms of classroom space and management.

Does the activity really address all three learning styles?

Visual and auditory certainly. Kinaesthetic is perhaps debatable and depends on whether you consider drawing to be doing.

What language could you focus on?

Very flexible. Notice how Raymond makes the language slightly more difficult as he progresses. In this case he is focusing on the lexical sets of colours, animals, etc and later the present continuous tense but obviously this can be adapted as is required. This activity is particularly good for the first lesson because it is a good way of seeing how much English your learners know, for example, if you say "There is a red dog sitting by a green house ..." and the students have problems with the colours then you know that you will need to teach colours in a later lesson.

What level of English do the students need to do this?

Low to high. As mentioned above you can adapt according to the level and needs of your students. The activity is also good for mixed ability classes (classes where the students have different levels of English) because weaker students can look to see what their classmates are drawing.

How does Raymond finish the activity?

An important part of any activity is how you finish it. In this case Raymond asks the students to look at and applaud each other's work (good for group formation). Sometimes it is difficult to get the children to look at each other's work (like everyone they are more interested in their own work and not the work of others!) but you can try different techniques, for example, put the work up on the walls and the students can walk around and look pretending they are visiting an art gallery.

Now continue to the next part of the observation in the Multi-sensory activities - Part two resource.

5.2 Multi-sensory activities - Part two

In the next part of the observation you will see the teacher, Raymond, presenting new language.

As you watch the Love and hate video, think about the following questions:

• What size class could this be used with?

• Does the activity really address all three learning styles?

• What language could you focus on?

• What level of English do the students need to do this?

Love and hate What size class could this be used with?

Any size. The students only need to come to the front of their class or stand in their seats.

Does the activity really address all three learning styles?

The flashcards would appeal to a visual learner. Auditory learners are catered for a little because Raymond varies his intonation, tone and speed of delivery. Kinaesthetic learners would enjoy the standing up part, while matching the position of the flashcard to the structure (I like, I really like, I love etc.) might appeal to left-brained learners. You could argue that there is bit of something for everyone in this lesson.

What language could you focus on?

In this lesson Raymond uses a group of words for food (we sometimes call this a lexical set) but you could do the same thing with different vocabulary, e.g. sports, animals etc. You could also change the structures to more informal English, e.g. "I can't stand ...", "I'm a big fan of ...", "I'm really into ..." etc.)

What level of English do the students need to do this?

Low to high. As mentioned above you can adapt according to the level and needs of your students. The activity is also good for mixed ability classes (classes where the students have different levels of English) because weaker students can look to see what their classmates are drawing.

In this unit, you have looked at the way the brain works and also at learning styles. You have also thought about your own teaching style, and how to teach so that all learners can learn effectively in your lessons. Finally, you have thought about aids and activities that can help you to incorporate VAK into your lessons.

6

Rounding up

This exercise will take around 30 - 40 minutes.

In this unit you have explored many factors related to learning styles: left and right brain functions, teaching styles, and visual, auditory and kinaesthetic learning modalities.

In this final section you will review the key areas and complete your third assessed task.

• 6.1 Water, oxygen and the brain

Recent research has discovered that most of the students with the best results at school were those who drank around eight glasses of water per day.

Many schools in the UK are already beginning to recognise the need for students (and their brains) to be sufficiently hydrated, and have installed water-coolers at strategic points.

Do you agree that such simple things can have an effect on learning? Give your opinion in the Food for thought poll below and see what other participants think.

6.2 Food for thought

In the Open University's Introduction to Accelerated Learning, the authors write:

"Two sources of fuel are particularly important to ensure a healthy and efficiently functioning brain – oxygen and water. Fortunately, in many countries, both of these are in ready supply! Many schools in the UK are already beginning to recognise the need for students (and their brains) to be sufficiently hydrated, and have installed water-coolers at strategic points.

Oxygen is easier to supply, but sitting down for a typical 50-minute lesson could decrease the amount of oxygen delivered to the brain by 15 per cent. Something as simple as getting students to stand up or fetch a textbook from a designated point across the classroom could ensure a more thoroughly oxygenated supply of the blood to the brain, and therefore more efficient brain performance.

Recent research (for example Trevor Brocklebank at Leeds Univesity, cited in Lucas, 2001) has discovered that most of the students with the best results at school were those who drank around eight glasses of water per day."

Do you agree that increased access to water and oxygen really improves students' learning?

Give your opinion using the poll.

Your selection: Without a doubt, yes

Responses

6.2 Learning styles quiz

Review the main aspects of learning styles that you have explored in this unit. Then check to see what you have learned in the Learning styles quiz.

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Most young learners have the same learning style (mainly visual).

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True

False

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Our own learning style may influence the way we teach.

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True

False

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We generally remember 30% of what we read.

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False

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Most classroom teaching addresses the right side of the brain.

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True

False

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Young children can focus on left-brained activities for about 30 minutes.

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False

Question 6

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Match the teaching aid to the learning style (VAK).

Question 7

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Some people have an extreme preference for one of the learning styles and may do the following..