Unit 13 LEARNERS CHARACTERISTICS

UNIT 13 LEARNER CHARACTERISTICS

In unit 13, I learnt that there are some factors such as motivation, learning style, learning strategies, and maturity that can influence on students’ success. First, motivation, as it is mention in unit 9 is really important since it is the feeling that makes us turn our wishes into action. Second, learning style which is how we like to learn. Some pupils learn by watching (visual), listening (auditory), moving or touching (kinaesthetic), working with others (group) or alone (individual), analyzing (analytic) or just deciding what and how to learn (autonomous).  You as teacher cannot generalize your learning style with the one your pupils have. For example, if you are an auditory learner, you cannot teach using auditory activities all the time since in a classroom you will find students with different learning styles. Of course, you can have some auditory learners, but the rest of your pupils can be visual or kinesthetic learners. Inside the classroom, you need to use activities for all learning styles e.g. you could play “Simon says” with kinaesthetic learners, teach vocabulary by using flashcards to visual learners or  play songs for auditory learners. Third, learning strategies are the ones that help learners to identify what they need to learn, process and use new language. In my classroom, I would use audio journals in which pupils record themselves speaking, then they judge and correct they pronunciation. Another strategy would be asking pupils to write every new vocabulary word on a piece of cardboard and ask them to stick it in a visible place in the classroom. Repetition would be strategy I would use to improve pronunciation. Memorizing could be a suitable strategy to learn chunks. Some of your learners can be really good at learning things by heart, but it may be an old-fashioned strategy. Personally, I would apply memorization just in few cases instead, I would train my pupils to think critically doing activities like debates or class discussions where students can state their points of view. Lastly, maturity is another learner characteristic that involves becoming grown up emotionally, physically and mentally. Children, teenagers and adults have distinctive characteristics when learning. For instance, children love moving whereas adults do not. Mingle could be a great activity, kids will find it funny, but adult people will find it boring. Teenagers are beginning to learn abstract things while adults like learning in most abstract ways. Hot chair could be a suitable activity for teenagers since while they mime things they move and think about what they are going to say to make his/her classmates guesses the word written on the board. This activity could be applied with adults since they also enjoy thinking and moving, but make sure you write on the board words according with your pupils ‘level of English. In conclusion, the four factors mentioned above can increase or decrease the level of success in your class depending on how you use them. 

These pictures show some possible activities you can apply in your class.

                                                           

                                                           LEARNING STYLES 
 

 Kinaesthetic learners (Simon says)    Visual learners (Flashcards)
      
Auditory learners (play songs)

LEARNING STRATEGIES (Audio Journals, Memorizing Chunks, Vocabulary Cards and Chorus Repetition)

                    

   MATURITY  (Mingle-mainly gor kids, Hot Chair-mainly for teenagers and adults) 

 

         

                                                

 References for additional information 

• Carla.umn.edu, (2014). The Center for Advanced Research on Language Acquisition (CARLA). [online] Available at: http://www.carla.umn.edu/learnerlanguage/ind_diff.html [Accessed 4 Dec. 2014]. 
•  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6TXuWzcwioU. (2014). [DVD].
• Jain T. (2014). What is the Relationship between Maturity and Learning?. [online] Preservearticles.com. Available at: http://www.preservearticles.com/2011082912266/what-is-the-relationship-between-maturity-and-learning.html [Accessed 4 Dec. 2014]. 
• O'Malley, M. and Uhl Chamot, A. (1995). Learning Strategies in Second Language Acquisition. 4th ed. The Press Syndicate of the University of Cambridge.