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Hi there, Steve Kaufmann. You often hear that there are different types of language learners. There are auditory learners, visual learners and kinetic learners; people who like to learn by listening, by seeing or by doing. Books have been written on the subject, I think even pedagogy has been developed to suit different kinds of learners. Personally, I don’t believe that we learn differently. I don’t think there are purely auditory learners or purely visual learners. I think we all learn in all of these different ways. I think the basic way in which the brain learns is the same.
A professor somewhere in the United States has written on this subject, he also is of the same view and has demonstrated it. I think it’s a fad. What is true is that different learners have different interests. Different types of learners are motivated by different things, so what we should do in language instruction (this is something I alluded to in my previous video) is find out how we can test. What kind of profile can we have or testing procedure to determine where the trigger points are. Where are the things that would motivate learner A versus learner B versus learner C? Maybe there are different types of learners based on what interests them and what motivates them. Maybe there are ways that we can find out what these things are and, therefore, we can motivate learners. I think that’s the challenge.
I know in my own case, I always think of those wonderful pieces of audio or reading that really grabbed me when I was learning say Chinese. I can think of a German cassette tape series where they interviewed people in different walks of life. To me, it’s always been this interesting content that grabs me. Now, some people like to do grammar, some people like to do flashcards, so how do we find out what kind of a learner the person is in terms of what motivates them.
I don’t think the issue is so much, “Are there different ways in which different people’s brains work differently to learn languages”, I think it’s basically the same. The brain, as I understand it, basically, has to get used to the stimulus that it receives and out of the disorder of all this stimulus it has to create patterns. I don’t for a minute believe in Chomsky’s universal grammar, I don’t believe that for a minute. I think the way we naturally, through listening as children and hearing the language, start to form patterns, put labels on things and then start to make sense of it. It’s the same way we deal with all the phenomena that we encounter in life. The brain has to put some order to this; otherwise, every time they encounter that situation it’s new, so they have to make rules, they make their own rules.
I think all of our brains work the same way; however, for whatever reason, we have different interests. Some people like sports. Some people like music. Some people like reading. Some people don’t like reading. So there are definitely different types of language learners. I think the key thing there and the challenge is to try to find out what makes people tick when it comes to language learning. How can you trigger people and how can you design a curriculum with 30 different people in the classroom that is going to make sure each student is motivated to the maximum. That should be the challenge in language learning, rather than grammar instruction or drills and worrying about kinetic learners and things of that nature.
Anyway, that’s the start of a good discussion, so I look forward to hearing from you. Bye for now.
2 comments on “Are There Different Types of Language Learners?”
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Hi Steve, I enjoyed reading your article and I definitely agree that it is imortant to find out what makes the student roll. However, I also believe that in language education, it is still good to practise all 4 areas of language skills, that is speaking, listening, reading, and writing. Even though some people don’t like reading, for example, it may still be useful for them one day.
Concerning the auditory, visual and kinetic learners, I think that this theory is still good for teachers to know, for I know for sure that people do have strong tendencies to vary in their learning styles.
As neuroscience moves forward it will be interesting to see how our understanding of language acquisition unfolds. So far, it seems that different people prefer to learn through different methods and with different materials. However, much of it also depends on the resources available. LingQ is overall my favourite resource, but it doesn’t have all the languages I am interested in to the extent I need.
As for language schools, I’ve had an interesting experience with Turkish in Istanbul. One school, International House was fun and I felt that I was learning spontaneously. The other school, Berlitz made me feel like grammar was being pounded into my head and I didn’t enjoy the experience.