UNIT 13: LEARNER CHARACTERISTICS

There are many factors that influence the way learners acquire a language such as motivation, learning style, learning strategies and maturity. I learned a little more about learning styles, which are natural ways that students use to learn L2, in this unit. The most important learning styles are: visual, auditory, kinaesthetic. The first, visual, means that students learn better if they watch or look at some images, pictures, photographs, and so on. Auditory learners acquire better the language by listening and hearing. For example, they listen to music, movies, and documentaries, etc. kinaesthetic learners whose knowledge is based on being physical, while moving or touching things. For instance, by playing a game that involves physical activity. Moreover, I learned about learning strategies that are utilized by learners to learn in a better way a second language. For example, they can use flash cards to learn new words and memorize them little by little. Another learner’s characteristic is maturity. It means that people from different ages learn in different ways, e.g. children need to be in constant movement to learn something while teenagers start to keep still for longer periods bus still need to move and for adults, they are able to keep still for longer periods. In order to apply this knowledge in the class it is important to know and investigate activities for all ages. In this way the teacher will manage to get a better result.

1. The University of Oregon (2009),Shaping the Way We Teach English: Module 07, Learning Strategies, retrieved from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=siNy5vXWbOY

2. University of Minnesota (2014), Overview of Learner Characteristics, retrieved from: http://www.carla.umn.edu/learnerlanguage/ind_diff.html