Филологические науки/1. Методика преподавания языка и литературы

Anna Kirakosian

Oles Honchar National University of Dnipropetrovsk, Ukraine

All Aboard: Include Everyone in Your Lesson

Observing students tackling a task can be fascinating. Even in cases where guidelines for the task are set out in advance, it may be that the learners approach it in different ways – but still reach the same outcome. In a recent course, we carried out an activity in which the learners had to put together a jigsaw puzzle with the target language written on the pieces. One group solved the puzzle by finding and matching up the appropriate language; another group ignored the language completely, and concentrated on finding the pieces of the puzzle which fitted together.

When my learners are asked to give feedback on a class, a number of them will put speaking and communicative activities on the plus side; others will rank these as drawbacks, and comment that they would have preferred more grammar rules and drills. These examples demonstrate that learners of different styles are present in the class. The question is: What does this mean for educators? It can be assumed that our top priority is to involve all of the learners in our lessons. Finding the best way to do this can be a challenge, however.

Learning styles. A good starting point would be to define what learning styles are. James Keefe says that they are ‘characteristic cognitive, affective and psychological behaviours that serve as relatively stable indicators of how learners perceive, interact with and respond to the learning environment’, while Rita and Kenneth Dunn state that ‘learning style is the way each person begins to concentrate on, process, internalize and retain new and difficult academic information’. Both these definitions can help to explain why learners approach learning differently. It is important for teachers to be aware that individuals learn in different ways and are, therefore, more comfortable using some learning strategies than others. Although it is not possible to reach each and every student all of the time, merely bearing in mind that a class consists of a group of individuals with different needs, strengths and weaknesses can help us to reach our goals. It can be useful for us to remember that we are ‘teaching to the learner’ rather than ‘teaching to the test’. Learners may well possess different ways of arriving at the same place, so we can help them by offering a mix of methods or approaches. As Pat Guild and Stephen Garger say: ‘It is possible to strive for uniform outcomes but to intentionally diversify the means for achieving them.’ Therefore, it is up to us to remain flexible and be on the lookout for new ways to convey information to our learners. Once we begin on this path, it can become easier to continue, especially if we start to notice a difference in both the processes of learning our students make use of and the outcomes which they achieve.

Sensory-based learning. Over the years, a number of learning styles have been identified, researched and labelled. Let us start with sensory-based learning, known by many as VAK (visual, auditory, kinaesthetic). For some educators, this is the most basic style, as we all have distinctive methods in which we perceive and store information. People who learn visually like to see words written down in order to understand or remember them better. These learners often ask teachers to write new vocabulary on the board, and often carry around a number of markers, highlighters and different-coloured pens. They may make pictures in their minds, underline words or phrases while reading and especially appreciate illustrated learning materials. Auditory learners need to hear or speak themselves in order to learn best. Some read aloud, and they often study with music in the background as they prefer sounds to silence. They generally take fewer notes in class as they prefer to concentrate on listening. They usually take the lead in discussions, and volunteer more often when we ask questions of the class. Kinaesthetic learners tend to divide into two groups – emotional and motoric. Kinaesthetic emotional learners need to feel comfortable with those they work with. They remember best when they can relate what they need to learn to their own personal experiences or are encouraged to personalise their learning materials. They perform best when they feel that there is a positive atmosphere in the classroom, and value friendliness on the part of the teacher. Kinaesthetic motoric learners, on the other hand, need to try things out for themselves, enjoy moving about the classroom and are good at recalling things they have done rather than those they have only heard or read about. These are the students who perk up as soon as they have the chance to do a roleplay, use physical objects or play a game.

Cognitive processing. Once we have determined how learners perceive and store information, the next step is to look at their cognitive processing methods. One way of doing this is to divide these into global or analytic learning styles. Early research done in this field was carried out by Herman Witkin, whose observations of fighter pilots led him to the conclusion that people tend to be field-dependent (global) or field-independent (analytic). He noticed that some of the pilots kept their planes upright after flying through fog banks and others didn’t: the field-dependent were influenced by the feelings they had while flying and ignored the instruments; the field-independent could ignore their feelings and rely solely on the instruments. This prompted the idea that global learners are more affected by their environments than analytic ones are. Further research on the subject resulted in setting out characteristics generally shared by learners within each of these two types. Global learners tend to remember whole experiences rather than details, and may make decisions with their hearts rather than their heads. When working in groups, they like to set up relationships with others and to feel comfortable with them. They often take on more than one project at a time and can be very good at multi-tasking. They are generally extrinsically motivated, as the opinions of others are important to them. When doing group work in class, global learners may start off by finding ways to set up relationships with the others in the group before getting down to the task. Analytic learners, on the other hand, value facts more than feelings. They are task-oriented and like to break processes down step-by-step. These learners like to finish one job before starting another and may even prefer to work alone. They like to know before they start what the outcome should be, and are more comfortable when they are given guidelines on how to get there. In contrast to global learners, they are usually more intrinsically motivated and do not need the recognition of others if they are convinced that what they have done is correct. When analytic learners are part of a group, they prefer to get on with the work and do not find it necessary to spend much time socialising, feeling that ‘small talk’ is a distraction from what they need to do. At a school where staff meetings took place in the evening, the global types arrived with cakes and made coffee, as they looked forward to having time to chat with colleagues. The analytic types were somewhat annoyed at the time they had to spend socializing and preferred to get down to work. A compromise was reached by setting aside time before the actual meeting for those who wanted coffee and cake in a relaxed atmosphere, thereby allowing the others to arrive later and tackle the tasks in hand.

Complications. There is a danger in all of this, however. As tempting as it may be to put students into neat categories, the issue is actually more complicated. In most cases, a great deal of ‘style stretching’ goes on. Andrew Cohen suggests that ‘it is also possible that learners over time can be encouraged to engage in “stylestretching” so as to incorporate approaches to learning they were resisting in the past’. Many learners have already begun to take on strategies that are generally classified as belonging to a different learner type from their preferred one. This may depend on the particular task they need to do, the way it was presented to them, or even the outcome they are expected to produce. Once they have had success with strategies which caused them to stretch out of their style, there is a good chance that they will employ these methods again. But if students get stuck, it may be up to the teacher to offer ideas to increase their repertoire of learning strategies in order to help them on the road to success.

Considerations. It is necessary to address some of the misconceptions surrounding the discussion of learning styles. Firstly, it is important to state that styles are never an excuse: just because someone is not very good at something does not mean that they never have to do it. It might be easier for a particular learner to learn to pronounce English words clearly or to write a cohesive sentence, but all learners have to find a way to do this in order to progress. A second important point to make is that no one style is ‘better’ than another. Teachers may make use of strategies more suited to one style than another, but the styles themselves cannot be classified as ‘good’ or ‘bad’. It is also important to remember that ‘style’ and ‘competence’ should be regarded as two separate things. One style may be more conducive to learning a particular subject, and each of the styles has advantages which can be used to aid students in their pursuit of knowledge. However, telling someone that they ‘shouldn’t learn’ in a particular way is not helpful; opening up the myriad possibilities to them to explore may be exactly what they need to discover their own love of learning. Another aspect of the knowledge of styles is the tolerance which can come with it. When a member of a group insists on approaching a task in a way that another member finds problematic, just knowing that this is the comfortable way for that individual to go about the task can put this action in a different light. Realising that people do things because they feel they need to, and not because they want to annoy another person, is a first step in accepting people and their behaviour.