Daily Excerpt: Practices That Work: Be Sensitive to Learning Styles

Excerpt from Practices That Work by Thomas Jesus Garza. 

Be Sensitive to Learning Styles

 

Betty Lou Leaver (Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center)
Madeline Ehrman (Foreign Service Institute)

Teachers working with language learners at all levels have for some decades now recognized that learners have specific sensory and cognitive preferences when it comes to learning and specific ways of interacting with classmates. These individual differences can be very important both in positive and negative ways in the language process, the significance of which may change as one progresses up the ladder of proficiency.

One phenomenon that has been observed by language teachers and their learners over time is the “tortoise and hare” syndrome. Learners who are painfully accurate—and therefore slow— in the beginning of language study often outdistance their faster peers who can plateau at the Advanced/Superior threshold because they have become comfortable with being “awfully fluent.”

What is clear to teachers of high-level learners and to learners themselves is that language and communication depend upon many variables. It is not enough to be a good reader (as visual learners usually are) or a good listener (as auditory learners usually are). A high-level language user must be a good reader and a good listener, regardless of sensory preference.

In the same way, it is not enough to be fluent (as most synoptic learners are) or accurate (as most ectenic learners are). One must be both fluent and accurate. It is not enough to see the underlying patterns (as levelers do) or to notice the fine structural, cultural, behavioral, and sociolinguistic differences (as sharpeners do). One must both level and sharpen, i.e., both see the patterns and see the differences. Both sides of the brain are used in native language. Both sides of the brain are needed for native-like language use.

The research is not complete and not conclusive about which learning styles are most conducive to achieve high levels of language proficiency, and certainly learners of all learning styles and personality types can benefit from the incorporation of learner variables such as cognitive styles and personality types into the learning process and their individualized learning plans. However, one aspect of high-level language learning stands out clearly: learners must learn to style-flex if they want to achieve native-like proficiency for a wide range of (opposing) learning styles are needed for acquiring language at this level. The wise teacher, then, not only adapts lesson plans to learner learning styles but also teaches learning strategies associated with the opposing learning styles and creates activities which require the learner to style-flex on an increasingly frequent basis.

For example, synoptic learners who are often cavalier about making slips of the tongue even in their own language can be led to greater accuracy through targeted amounts of old-fashioned drilling, more natural opportunities for repetition, awareness awakening (e.g., reacting very strongly when a synoptic learner mis-speaks), and monitor development through repeated tape-recording and mistake-finding. Ectenic learners can be led to a stronger “feel” for the language through etymology activities, work with roots, and semantic mapping—activities that allow them to use their well-honed analytic skills at the same time as they are developing the ability to level differences in order to find the patterns that define the nature of the language.

The kind of activities needed for each learner will vary, depending on his or her learning style profile. Every profile is different, and therein lies the challenge and the fun of teaching learners at this— and any—proficiency level. The additional excitement in teaching learners at the highest levels of language proficiency is not the challenge of adapting materials and learning activities to learners’ learning styles but in adapting learners to the learning styles required by the materials and real-life activities that near-native language users must be able to handle.

 

Further Reading

Ehrman, Madeline E., & Leaver, Betty Lou. (2002). The E&L Cognitive Styles Construct. Unpublished, copyrighted, and registered instrument.

Ehrman, Madeline E., & Leaver, Betty Lou. 2003. “Cognitive Styles in the Service of Language Learning.” System 31 (3): 393-415.

Jackson, Frederick. 2004. “Observations on Training Beyond-3 in an Institutional Setting.” In Teaching and Learning to Near-Native Levels of Second Language Acquisition: Proceedings of the Spring and Fall 2003 Conferences of the Coalition of Distinguished Language Centers (Leaver & Shekhtman, eds.). Salinas, CA: MSI Press.

Leaver, Betty Lou. 1986. “Hemisphericity of the Brain and Foreign Language Teaching.” Folia Slavica 8:1, pp. 76-90.

Leaver, Betty Lou. 2019. Think Yourself into Becoming a Language Learning Super Star. Hollister: MSI Press.

Leaver, Betty Lou, Dubinsky, Inna, & Champine, Melina. 2004. Passport to the World: Learning to Communicate in a Foreign Language. San Diego, CA: LARC Press.

Leaver, Betty Lou. Forthcoming. The E&L Cognitive Style Construct: Supercharging Language Learning One Mind at a Time. Hollister, CA: MSI Press.

Shekhtman, Boris, Leaver, Betty Lou, & Ehrman, Madeline E. 2004. “Questions Typically Asked by Learners in Level 4 Classrooms.” In Teaching and Learning to Near-Native Levels of Second Language Acquisition: Proceedings of the Spring and Fall 2003 Conferences of the Coalition of Distinguished Language Centers (Leaver & Shekhtman). Salinas, CA: MSI Press.

 

 

 

For more blog posts about Tom Garza and his book, click HERE.

For more posts about language learning and teaching, click HERE.

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