Tuesday's Tip for Language Learning #28: Sensory Preferences
Excerpt from Think Yourself into Becoming a Language Learning Super Star
Sensory preferences refer to the ways in which you perceive information, i.e. how you take in new information. While there are tests to figure this out (e.g., Barsch, 1995), you probably already know what your sensory preference works for you; reading, listening, or writing things down. These are considered the three major sensory preferences.[1]
The wisdom is that you should use your sensory
preference while learning new information. If your sensory preference is not
accounted for in the classroom, then it is essential for your success to get
the same information in the form that you need it in order to learn it well.
Using a non-preferred style for review of material
either in class or at home is fine. In fact, it is good. It will stretch you,
cause you to develop a set of strategies for another preference, and make you
more flexible in the long run. This is important because language is oral and
written; you cannot opt out of either form.
Visual
learners
Visual
learners learn through sight. Reading is a learning mechanism for them.
Flashcards can work, too, depending upon the type of visuals leaner: one who
learns by seeing words or one who learns by seeing images. Flashcards are
probably not the best way to learn vocabulary, though most visual learners
swear by them because they provide no context for the words and there is no
easy way then to use the words when you need them. Better to use reading text.
Dealing
with listening texts may be a problem. A transcript, if you can get one, of a
show, movie, podcast, or conversation can definitely help. At first, listen and
read at the same time. When your skills get better, read first, then listen.
Finally, listen first, then check understanding by reading.
books = tools of visual
learners
Auditory
learners
If you are an auditory
learner, your listening ability will likely outstrip your reading ability. Auditory
learners come in two varieties: aural and oral.
Aural learners learn by
listening. If you are an aural learner, you may need to ask your teacher or
native speaker to read the newspaper articles assigned for homework aloud for
you so that you can record them. Or, if they are read aloud in class, go ahead
and record them. In using these texts where you have auditory support for the
text, read them in three ways; (1) at first, listen and read at the same time;
(2) later, listen first, then read; and (3) finally, read first and check
understanding by listening.
If you are an oral
learner, you learner by talking aloud. There are not many learners of this
type, but they do exist. In this case, you will want to be talking as much as
possible. Recite dialogues, role plays, and poems to yourself whenever you can.
When you are in the car or other appropriate venue, sing songs from the native
culture.
Reading may be something
that you do little of in your own language, and that makes development of
reading skills even harder. Use the reading strategies in the previous section
to help improve our reading skills.
podcasts
+ broadcasts = tools of auditory learners
Motor learners
Motor learners come in
two varieties: mechanical and kinesthetic. Kinesthetic learner may be the label
you have heard. Often, it is used to refer to both mechanical and kinesthetic
learners, though kinesthetic learners use the large body muscles (legs, arms)
for learning whereas mechanical learners use the small body muscles (fingers)
for learning.
If you are a kinesthetic
(large motor) learners, try to be active while listening and reading.
March, jump, run, write, type. Whatever works… Just move! I had a very
successful kinesthetic learner once who would try to remember new words by
marching around his room and shouting them aloud.
If you are a mechanical
learner, write down everything as it comes up in class. Sure, you may never
look at it again; many mechanical learners never do. They don’t need to. The
writing it down is enough to put it into their memory. I know that well because
I am a mechanical learner. Write down, anything you want to learn, for
homework, for review, or just as you interact with native speakers. I am not
learning a language at the moment, but I use the “jot it down” tactic for all
kinds of things—and every once in a while I have to scoop up and trash a bunch
of pieces of paper scraps where I have written down things that I have never
looked at, never will look at, but whose content I have already stuffed into my
memory.
If you are a mechanical
learner, you may struggle with reading and listening. Strategies shared in the
previous section of this book may help you with that struggle.
computers
= toys of motor learners
If
new information comes at you in a non-preferred style, find the same
information in a form that is more accessible to you!
[1]
There are others, such as haptic (touching) and olfactory (smelling), but
visual, auditory, and motor are the most pertinent to language learning.
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See more Tuesday tips.
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