Learning Styles and Motivation in the ESL/EFL Classroom

Learning Styles:

• Language learning styles and strategies are some of the main factors that help determine how and how well our students learn a second or foreign language. A learning style is “an individual’s natural, habitual, and preferred way of absorbing, processing, and retaining new information and skills”.

They are categorized into four dimensions: 

1. Sensory preferences.         

• Visual: students like to read and obtain a great deal from visual stimulation.·         
• Auditory: students enjoy and profit from unembellished lectures, conversations, and oral directions. They preferently learn by hearing.
• Kinesthetic and tactile: students like movement and enjoy working with tangible objects, collages, and flashcards.

Activities to use in a classroom according to the students' sensory preferences.

2. Personality types.

•  extraverted vs. introverted; 
• intuitive-random vs. sensing-sequential; 
• thinking vs. feeling; and 
• closure-oriented/judging vs. open/perceiving

3. Desired degree of generality

Global or holistic students like social interaction, communicative events in which they can emphasize the main idea and avoid analysis of grammatical minutiae. Analytic students tend to concentrate more on grammar and often avoid more free-flowing communicative activities. global students and analytic students have much to learn from each other.

 4. Biological differences

Related to biological factors, such as biorhythms, sustenance, and location. Biorhythms reveal the times of day when students feel good and perform their best. Some L2 learners are morning people, while others do not want to start learning until the afternoon, and still others are creatures of the evening. Sustenance refers to the need for food or drink while learning. Many L2 learners need a candy bar, a cup of coffee, or a soda in hand, while learning, but others are distracted from study by food and drink. Location involves: temperature, lighting, sound, and even the firmness of the chairs

David Kolb is an American psychologist, professor, and educational theorist. He is reknowned for his work on experiential learning and individual learning styles. His Learning Style Inventory was one of the first tools developed for assessing learning preferences and is still widely used today.

Kolb’s learning cycle is a key model actually in use relating to adult learning and development. It is very important to know it, because knowing your own and your team’s learning style allows you to grow and develop more effectively, building skills and experience which allow you to meet your life goals. I understood the learning cycle can begin at any one of the four points and that it should really be approached as a continuous spiral. However the learning process depends on how the person is carrying out a particular action and then seeing the effect of the action in this situation.

To help to find out our learning style, there’s a  Kolb’s Learning Style Questionnaire with 80 items available on the web.

Six main categories of L2 learning strategies (by Oxford, 1990).

1. Cognitive strategies. reasoning, analysis, note-taking, summarizing, synthesizing, outlining, reorganizing information to develop stronger schemas (knowledge structures), practicing in naturalistic settings, and practicing structures and sounds formally

2. Metacognitive strategies. Identifying one’s own learning style preferences and needs, planning for a L2 task, gathering and organizing materials, arranging a study space and a schedule, monitoring mistakes, and evaluating task success, and evaluating the success of any type of learning strategy.

3. Memory-related strategies. Help learners link one L2 item or concept with another. Various memory-related strategies enable learners to learn and retrieve information in an orderly string (e.g., acronyms), while other techniques create learning and retrieval via sounds (e.g., rhyming), images (e.g., a mental picture of the word itself or the meaning of the word), a combination of sounds and images (e.g., the keyword method), body movement (e.g., total physical response), mechanical means (e.g., flashcards), or location (e.g., on a page or blackboard)

4. Compensatory strategies. Guessing from the context in listening and reading; using synonyms and “talking around” the missing word to aid speaking and writing; and strictly for speaking, using gestures or pausing words, help the learner make up for missing knowledge.

5. Affective strategies. Identify one’s mood and anxiety level, talking about feelings, rewarding oneself for good performance, and using deep breathing or positive self-talk. Sometimes they have a negative link with proficiency, because this one is increased by other strategies such as cognitive, metacognitive and social strategies.

6. Social strategies. Asking questions to get verification, asking for clarification of a confusing point, asking for help in doing a language task, talking with a native-speaking conversation partner, and exploring cultural and social norms, help the learner work with others and understand the target culture as well as the language.

To assess these strategies, we can use Self-report surveys, observations, interviews, learner journals, dialogue journals, think-aloud techniques, and other measures have been used, even though, each one of these has advantages and disadvantages. Other results have more to do with motivation, gender, age, culture, brain hemisphere dominance, career orientation, academic major, beliefs, and the nature of the L2 task.

 

Motivation

There are two types of motivation depending on the source it comes from.

• 

• Motivation is understood as the complex integration of psychic processes that carries out the inducing regulation of behavior, since it determines the direction, intensity and meaning of behavior.

• Motivation awakens, initiates, maintains, strengthens or weakens the intensity of the behavior and puts an end to it, once the goal pursued by the subject has been achieved.

• 
  
• 

Motivation is an inner force which drives people’s behavior. This force is based on needs, (these needs may go from biological to self-satisfaction or personal development), rewards and efforts. Both types of motivation are important in life. Intrinsic Motivation is the arises from within which instigates a person to perform an activity, for self-satisfaction. On the other extreme, extrinsic motivation is when you do something because of an external force. There are many factors related to motivation and its intensity, direction, and meaning, but all of them move our behavior to a specific goal. Motivation will change according to our needs and results. It is very important that we, as teachers, know what motivation is, where it can take us, how we can increase it or even how we can awaken it, as much in ourselves as in our students.

 

For example, to stimulate both, intrinsic and extrinsic motivation, sometimes, when I’m teaching a topic, whatever it be, I assign an activity, and when they are working, I play music (if it doesn’t bother anybody), and casually, I comment “I like this song, and I heard some people use it as a battle hymn when they play soccer but I haven’t searched about it”. It doesn’t take a long when I “get” the available information of the uses of the song, the video, the interpreter, another performer, etc.

This makes the student wants to search on his own, but at the same time, he constructs a wider path of communication between both of us. He's sharing something with his teacher and this converts him in a more “valuable” person for the class. I know this is behaviorism, and it works.

Also, for the development of the group, as a small community, and the class itself, especially when activities are a little harder, I give the objective of the class, the activities to do, and I give them the opportunity to leave to play volleyball or any other ludic activity they do in group, as long as the whole class finishes the activity. They all participate, they help each other, they all work, they all have fun. I have to say that this has worked for me, because the groups which I work with are about 10 to 15 students.

 

Then for me, the main issue of learning about motivation, is to get and spread the enough health and mental capacity and ability, to keep and strengthen our own (intrinsic) motivation, whatever our task be, so we can get our objectives and function as community human beings in progressive evolution.

Conclusions

• I think the next image describes very well what I think. Motivation is that energy or force that moves us to a goal. It may come from ourselves or from out of ourselves. There are many factors related to motivation and its intensity, direction, and meaning, but all of them move our behavior to a specific goal. Motivation will change according to  our needs and results. It is very important that we, as teachers, know what motivation is, where it can take us, how we can increase it or even how we can awaken it, as much in ourselves as in our students.

• As it is about an idea and the emotions that surround it, I would say, that is very necessary to have the enough health and mental capacity and ability, to keep and strengthen our motivation, whatever our task be, so we can get our objectives.
• I also believe that, we should know a little more about learning styles and learning strategies, my commitment to generate the appropriate moments and spaces in my class for each of my students should be greater. For me, it has always been to work with all the personal resources I have, the tone of my voice, my gestures and body language, I write on the blackboard, the use of the projector, background music, etc. And always, always, I try to have a moment of laughter during the class. However, if a student says he does not understand the explanation, I try to guide him so that, first, he expresses his doubt in the clearest way possible and I usually ask him how far he understood, in order to rescue what he has grasped and from there, try to continue again, in a more suitable way for him.
• 
  

References.

• Analisa McMillan. (2017, may 13). Learning Styles VAK [archive of video]. Retrieved from https://youtu.be/0onG1OUTUWk
• Norizia Jinelle Onchengco. (2013, November 17).  Different types of Learners [archive of video]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_bQUSFzLI4 Oxford L., R. (2003). 
• McLeod, S. A. (2017, October 24). Kolb - learning styles and experiential learning cycle. Simply Psychology. www.simplypsychology.org/learning-kolb.html
• Maleyev, O. (2012). Kolb Learning Style Inventory. Retrieved on Feb. 11th, 2022 from https://slideplayer.com/slide/5720269/
• Language Learning Styles and Strategies: An Overview. Retrieved on July, 23, 2017 from Northwestern Polytechnic University:  http://web.ntpu.edu.tw/~language/workshop/read2.pdf
• Cherry, K., (April 17, 2021). What Motivation Theory Can Tell Us About Human Behavior. Retrieved on March, 1st, 2022, from https://www.verywellmind.com/theories-of-motivation-2795720#:~:text=Humanistic%20Theory,levels%20of%20needs%20and%20motivations.
• McLeod, S. (2007). Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. Retrieved on March, 1st., 2022, from https://www.simplypsychology.org/maslow.html
• Mitchell-Gosa, C. (2010). Definition and Importance of Motivation. Retrieved on March 1st., 2022, from http://motivationisfundamental.blogspot.com/p/motivation-relationship-to-learning.html
• Mitchell-Gosa, C. (2010). Motivation Theories. Retrieved on March 1st., 2022, from  http://motivationisfundamental.blogspot.com/p/motivation-theories.html
• Naranjo, M. (2009). Motivación: perspectivas teóricas y algunas consideraciones de su importancia en el ámbito educativo. Revista Educación 33, retrieved on March, 1st., 2022, from https://revistas.ucr.ac.cr/index.php/educacion/article/download/510/525/#:~:text=La%20perspectiva%20conductual%20enfatiza%20la,motivaci%C3%B3n%20intr%C3%ADnseca%20en%20el%20logro.
• Oxford L., R. (2003). Language Learning Styles and Strategies: An Overview. Retrieved on March 4th,2022, from Northwestern Polytechnic University: http://web.ntpu.edu.tw/~language/workshop/read2.pdf

 Interaction in the English Learning Classroom

Communication is a human need, and so is a growing way. As we all know, languages emerged  as the necessary ways to communicate. It is known that oral was first than written. And even though, making the graphical representations of these early codes may not have been an easy matter, it was surely a challenge for the early men to use the script. 

 TYPES OF INTERACTIONS WITHIN THE CLASSROOM AND THEIR IMPORTANCE.

According to Holmberg (2005) there are 3 principal types:

 ✅Student-content interaction: The first kind of interaction is the one that is established between the student and the content of the subject matter. This is a characteristic of education. Without it there can be no education, since it is the process of interacting intellectually with the content, which produces the change in the understanding and perspective of the student, that is, in the cognitive structures of his mind. This seems to be the type of interaction, at least partially, that Holmberg (2005) refers to as “internal didactic conversation”, when students “talk to themselves” about the information and ideas they find in a text, a TV show, a master class and others.

✅Student-instructor / teacher interaction: The second type of interaction is that between the student and the expert who prepared and explained the material or some other expert who functions as an instructor. In this case the expert is the teacher. In this interaction, teachers try to achieve specific goals. Once they are assigned a curriculum or content program, they try to stimulate or maintain student interest and motivate them to learn. They review what their previous knowledge is, through different techniques and strategies; this with the purpose of knowing the starting point of the students. The teacher must make his students aware of the different ways of learning and must be able to enhance their skills. And as teachers, we have never to forget that we are all the time, learning from our students, too, and so, from the teaching practice.

✅Student-student interaction: student-student interaction is sometimes a very valuable resource for learning, and even essential, based on the fact that group work is essential to function in modern society, especially in business, teachers they teach students to work effectively in groups. Student-student is an especially valuable example of group interaction. Here we can mention teamwork, role play, group conversations, dialogues and their shared experiences.

HOLMBERG,  B.  (2005)  “Status  and  trends  of  distance  education  research”.  The Pennsylvania  StateUniversity. 

7 tips to increase interactions in the English classroom and that will help your students' learning:

1. Speak English as long as possible during classes

2. Apply positive reinforcement, sometimes a phrase of recognition is enough: "How well you are doing!"

3. Support communication, visually and gesturally

4. Generate opportunities to communicate in English: send a text message in English, say hello, ask ...

5. Promote spontaneous interactions with the teacher and between students.

6. Track progress.

7. See that everyone maintains an attitude of respect.

How much English is enough? 

The English language can be over 100,000 words long, so teaching and learning new lexical items can seem quite overwhelming. Fortunately, the number of words that students need to have a fairly acceptable knowledge of this language is much less extensive.

Professor Jack C. Richards affirms that "3,000 or 4,000 are enough for learners up to intermediate levels; college-level students need between 8,000 and 10,000 words. Almost all of the classes I have taught were beginner or intermediate-level, and that is probably true for the vast majority of EFL instructors”, Zimmermann, S. (2018).

How many languages are there in the world?

There are about 7,097 different languages in the world, according to the magazine 'Ethnologue'. The language with 'official language' status in the most countries is English (59 countries), followed by French (29), Arabic (27), Spanish (20) and Portuguese (10).

Read more: https://www.europapress.es/sociedad/noticia-idiomas-cifras-cuantas-lenguas-hay-mundo-20190221115202.html

Humans can only see themselves through others and humanity is so diverse that we can guess that it is this need which has made us understand the importance of languages and their expansion throughout the world to facilitate communication. Being able to communicate with the people around us is an extraordinary achievement in linguistic history, but doing so in a second language is, in my opinion, almost magical.

We all can learn another language!!

 

When we learn another language, we not only learn words and structures (vocabulary and grammar), but we also learn another culture.

Learning from the context of the target language helps us understand the real meaning of the own language (meaningful learning). For this learning to be achieved, as teachers we must strive to help our students develop the four basic skills in acquiring a language: writing, reading, listening and speaking.

 Recently, the Common European Languages Framework (CEFR) has become a guide for language levels all over the world in EFL. On the CEFR scale, B2 is considered upper intermediate, and a profound knowledge of approximately 4,000 words is required. Vocabulary knowledge is often viewed as a very needed requirement and tool for second language learners because a limited vocabulary in a second language impedes successful communication. 

Learning English has many advantages in this, our age, the information age. Thus, as in the beginning, Latin was a predominant language, today, English is considered the most important language because it is the one most used in commercial relations and therefore, it provides better employment horizons; academic and scientific articles are published in English; it is the tourist language by excellence, etc.

If you are a teacher, be prepared to teach in the best way; If you are a student, commit yourself to learn as much and as well as possible. THANK YOU 🙏😊

You can leave me your comment, I will be happy to read you. Thanks and see you next post.

El miedo, al igual que el dolor, son sentimientos que adquirimos, mas no son innatos, por lo tanto no son parte de nuestra naturaleza y por eso nos traen sufrimiento. Sin miedo... ¿qué cosas serías capaz de hacer si no conocieras el temor? ¿Cuáles serían tus límites si el amor no los conoce? Sin miedo, ¡¡sólo seríamos luz!!