The document discusses learning styles in foreign language education. It defines learning style as how individuals acquire, retain, and retrieve information. There are several dimensions of learning styles, including sensing vs intuitive, visual vs verbal, active vs reflective, sequential vs global, and inductive vs deductive. The compatibility between a student's learning style and an instructor's teaching style can impact learning outcomes. A multistyle approach is recommended to engage different types of learners, such as using visual aids, group activities, and balancing inductive and deductive teaching methods.

1. LEARNING STYLES
December 14th, 2011 Prepared by Luis Machado
/Ecuador
Learning and Teaching Styles In Foreign and Second Language Education
Richard M Felder, North Carolina State University
Eunice R. Henriques, Universidade Estadual de Sao Paulo
Foreign Language Annals, 28, No. 1,1995, pp. 21–31

2. WHAT’S YOUR LEARNING STYLE?

3. LEARNING STYLE, A DEFINITION
The ways in which an individual
characteristically
acquires, retains, and retrieves
information are collectively termed
the individual’s learning style.

4. HOW DO STUDENTS LEARN?
 By seeing and hearing;
 Reflecting and acting;
 Reasoning logically and intuitively;
 Memorizing and visualizing.

5. TEACHING METHODS
Some instructors
 Lecture,
 Demonstrate or discuss;
 Focus on rules and others on examples;
 Emphasize memory and others
understanding.

6. CONDITIONS FOR STUDENT’S LEARNING
 Student’s native ability;
 His/her prior preparation;
 The compatibility of his or her
characteristic approach to learning; and
 The instructor’s characteristic approach
to teaching.

7. POTENTIAL CONSEQUENCES
Students’ Instructors’
Learning mismatch Teaching
Styles Styles
Tend to be bored in class
(What is worse)
Inattentive in class
May become overly critical of
Do poorly on tests their students
Get discouraged about the Begin to question their own
course competence as teachers.
Give up the course

8. DIMENSIONS OF LEARNING STYLE
 Sensing and Intuitive Learners
 Visual and Verbal Learners
 Active and Reflective Learners
 Sequential and Global Learners
 Inductive and Deductive Learners

9. SENSING AND INTUITIVE LEARNERS
Two ways in which people tend to perceive the world: sensation and
intuition. Jung (1971).
Sensors Intuitors
Concrete and methodical. Abstract and imaginative.
Use facts, data, and experimentation. Use principles, concepts, and theories.
Patient with detail but do not like Bored by detail and welcome
complications. complications.
Rely on memorization. Like variety, dislike repetition.
Careful but may be slow. Quick but may be careless.
Comfortable when learning and Tend to be better equipped to
following rules and standard accommodate new concepts and
procedures. exceptions to rules.
Involve observing, gathering data Involve indirect perception by way of
through the senses. the subconscious— accessing memory,
speculating, imagining.

10. EHRMAN AND OXFORD (1990) STUDY ON LEARNING STRATEGIES AND TEACHING
APPROACHES PREFERRED BY SENSORS AND INTUITORS IN AN INTENSIVE LANGUAGE
TRAINING PROGRAM
Sensors Intuitors
Used a variety of memorization Preferred teaching approaches
strategies (internal drills and that involved greater
flash cards) complexity and variety
Liked practical class material Tended to be bored with drills.
Liked highly structured and Better able to learn
well organized classes with independently of the
clear goals and milestones for instructor’s teaching style.
achievement.

11. VISUAL AND VERBAL LEARNERS
Visual Learners Verbal Learners
Learn through
Pictures
Diagrams
Flow Charts Spoken Explanations
Mind maps Written Explanations
Films
Demonstrations
Most people extract and retain more information from visual presentations
than from written or spoken prose (Dale 1969), while most language
instruction is verbal, involving predominantly lectures, writing in texts and
on chalkboards, and audiotapes in language laboratories.

12. VISUAL AND VERBAL LEARNERS (CONTINUED)
SEEING
HEARING
HUMAN SENSES TOUCHING
TESTING
SMELLING
VISUAL
SENSORY MODALITIES AUDITORY
KINESTETIC
KINESTETIC does not properly belong on a list of sensory input modalities.
KOLB (1984) LAWRENCE (1993)
ACTIVE / REFLECTIVE EXTRAVERT / INTROVERT

13. VISUAL AND VERBAL LEARNERS (CONTINUED)
The challenge to language instructors
To devise ways of augmenting their verbal classroom
presentation with nonverbal visual material:
Showing photographs, Using
drawings, sketches, and films, videotapes, and
cartoons to reinforce dramatizations to illustrate
presentation of vocabulary lessons in dialogue and
words pronunciation.

14. ACTIVE AND REFLECTIVE LEARNERS
The complex mental processes by which perceived information is
converted into knowledge. (Kolb 1984).
(1) Active experimentation (2) Reflective observation
involves doing something involves examining and
in the external world with manipulating the
the information— information introspectively.
discussing it or explaining
it or testing it in some
way.

15. Language classes in which all
students are relegated to passive
roles, listening to and observing
the instructor and taking notes, do
little to promote learning for either
active or reflective learners.

16. TEACHING STRATEGIES
Language classes should include a variety of
 active learning experiences, such as
conversations, enactment of dialogues and
minidramas, and team competitions, and
 reflective experiences, such as brief writing
exercises and question formulation exercises.

17. TEACHING STRATEGIES (CONTINUED)
 Small-group exercises can be extremely effective for
both active and reflective learners.
 Five minutes of group work in a 50-minute period can
be enough to maintain the students‟ attention for the
entire class.
 Pose a question or problem (“Translate this
sentence.” “What‟s wrong with what I just wrote?”
“How many synonyms for „happy‟ can you think of in
30 seconds?” “What question do you have about
what we covered today?”) and have students come
up with answers working in groups of three, with one
group member acting as recorder.

18. SEQUENTIAL AND GLOBAL LEARNERS
 Sequential learners absorb information and acquire
understanding of material in small connected
chunks.
 Sequential learners can function with incomplete
understanding of course material, but they may
lack a grasp of the broad context of a body of
knowledge and its interrelationships with other
subjects and disciplines.

19. SEQUENTIAL AND GLOBAL LEARNERS (CONTINUED)
 Global learners take in information in
seemingly unconnected fragments and
achieve understanding in large holistic leaps.
 Strongly global learners may appear slow
and do poorly on homework and tests until
they grasp the total picture, but once they
have it they can often see connections that
escape sequential learners.

20. SEQUENTIAL AND GLOBAL LEARNERS (CONTINUED)
Various terms have been used to describe categories
that appear to have points in common with the
sequential and global categories:
 Analytic and global (Kirby 1988; Schmeck 1988);
 Field-independent and field-dependent (Witkin &
Goodenough 1981);
 Serialistic and holistic (Pask 1988);
 Left-brained and right-brained (Kane 1984);
 Atomistic and holistic (Marton 1988);
 Sequential and random (Gregorc 1982).

21. INDUCTIVE AND DEDUCTIVE LEARNERS
In inductive presentation Students infer governing or
one makes observations, correlating principles.
measurements, data.
In deductive presentation Students deduce
one starts with consequences, and
axioms, principles, or rules formulate applications.
Students may prefer deductive presentation because of its relatively high
level of structure.
A large percentage of classroom teaching in every subject is primarily or
exclusively deductive, probably because deduction is an efficient and
elegant way to organize and present material that is already understood.

22. DISTINCTION BETWEEN LANGUAGE ACQUISITION AND LEARNING.
Language Acquisition
Acquisition is an inductive process. To acquire a language
means:
To pick it up gradually,
To gain the ability to communicate without necessarily being
able to articulate the rules.
To absorb what they can from the abundant and continuous
input.
To gain in their ability to transfer strategies, make
assumptions about the new language system, formulate and
test rules.
Language Learning.
Language learning is a largely conscious process that
involves formal exposure to rules of syntax and semantics
followed by specific applications of the rules, with corrective
feedback reinforcing correct usage and discouraging incorrect
usage. The flow of the learning process from general to specific
suggests its characterization as a deductive process.

23. A MULTISTYLE APPROACH TO FOREIGN LANGUAGE EDUCATION
Students learn more when information is presented in a variety of modes than when
only a single mode is used.
“Active Learning Strategies, Classroom Innovations, and One-Minute Motivators”
Retrieved from http://community.tncc.edu/faculty/dollieslager/rcte/ESCCAcademy.html

24. INSTRUCTIONAL TECHNIQUES
Teach new material (vocabulary, rules of grammar) in the
context (intuitive, global, inductive).
Use photographs, drawings, sketches, and cartoons to
illustrate and reinforce the meanings of vocabulary
words. Show films, videotapes, and live dramatizations to
illustrate lessons in texts (visual, global.)
Assign some repetitive drill exercises to provide practice
in basic vocabulary and grammar (sensing) but don’t
overdo it (intuitive).
Provide intervals—however brief—for students to think
about what they have been told; assign brief writing
exercises (reflective).
Raise questions and problems to be worked on by
students in small groups; enact dialogues and mini-
dramas; hold team competitions (active).
Give students the option of cooperating on at least some
homework assignments (active).Active learners generally
learn best when they interact with others.
Balance inductive and deductive presentation of course
material.

25. REFERENCE
Learning and Teaching Styles In Foreign and Second Language
Education
Richard M Felder, North Carolina State University
Eunice R. Henriques, Universidade Estadual de Sao Paulo
Foreign Language Annals, 28, No. 1,1995, pp. 21–31