Learning styles

This blog post accompanies the article  "Be your own teacher" in Business Spotlight 3/2010, pages 12-17.

For some time it has been put forward by experts that people learn in different ways, and that what is most relevant for the language classroom is those learning styles referred to as VAK — visual, auditory and kinaesthetic. According to the theory, if you can identify and tap into your participants' preferred ways of learning, you are better able to reach their potential in learning a language. Tests such as the one in Business Spotlight 3/2010, page 12, and this one are designed to help people to determine their preferred learning style.

Recently, however, this theory has been brought into debate by, among others, Daniel Willingham, a cognitive psychologist and professor of psychology at the University of Virginia. You can read Carol Scheunemann's interview with him on page 16 of Business Spotlight 3/2010. He claims, for example, that this way of thinking can be detrimental to learners by pigeon-holing them into categories. Once you identify that a particular student is a visual learner, you eschew auditory and kinaesthetic methods when teaching this person — even if those methods might be helpful in certain situations.  

What Willingham is arguing is that it is not only the learner who determines how something will be learned, but the topic to be learned: some materials work better presented visually, others in an auditory way, and for others the learner needs to be physically involved. It would be difficult to do presentation training, for example, without giving your student the kinaesthetic experience of getting up and performing.

Further, even if a learner claims to be, for example, primarily a visual learner, why shouldn't they then work on developing other skills? Learning to speak a foreign language in particular requires a great deal of auditory input and output.

Here is the Willingham video for your own reference. It's perhaps a little too technical to be of much interest to your learners, but watch it for yourself and then decide whether you want to refer your learners to it.

After working through the activities suggested in Business Spotlight in the classroom, issue 3/2010, try this short follow-up exercise:

Write this Chinese proverb on the board: "Give a man a fish, you feed him for a day. Teach a man how to fish, you feed him for a lifetime." Then discuss this proverb with your learners in relation to language learning. How much do they rely on you as the teacher to teach them, or do they view you more as a facilitator to guide them in learning the required language and skills for their work? Indeed, how do you view your role in the business English classroom? And how do your students feel they can effectively use everything discussed so far about VAK to learn business English with your assistance?

My opinion is that it helps to be aware of different modes of teaching and learning, but that it is more helpful to mix and match them depending on the topic or skills you are teaching, and on your and your learners' personalities. Choose the best method that works for you and your learners, and don't feel pressured into doing something that you don't feel comfortable with.