Why Teacher, Why?
As teachers, we know that people learn differently. Some students remember songs and stories. Others always ask for explanations.
If there’s someone in your class who can’t really take things in until they’ve fully understood them, you might want to read about one of my students, Laura.
Laura
We had a class of four adults. Most of them loved games so I played them twice a month. However, I noticed that Laura, would not participate actively and would not incorporate the language that emerged in those games. Neither new lexicon, casual comments nor quick explanations stuck to her mind.
After a while, I realised Laura did not have the ability to draw information from disorganised sources so found games, free conversation and other unstructured activities useless. She would remember nothing afterwards and was confused when unexplained concepts appeared spontaneously.
What did I do? I changed my plans and now introduced reasons and objectives for every activity. I told her to write the new words that appeared in casual conversations; to interrupt with questions when she did not understand; to challenge me whenever she thought something was a waste of time.
Laura changed. She became livelier. She chatted more. She asked when she felt lost. She analysed the aims of exercises. She confronted me when she thought there was no reason behind what the teacher was doing. She profited from every class.
What you can do?
If you have students who only learn what they understand, always offer explanations. Tell them to revise grammar, surf the internet for sites that speak about the language, or work out the etymology of words.
Encourage their questions and actively check for understanding. Classify new vocabulary into groups and, if possible, match rules to usage.
Give reasons when there are, but clarify that of often there are none. Better still, create a section in your class for things that have no explanation. Then, tell students to dedicate pages on their notebooks for what has no logic. Draw charts, categorise information into groups and develop step-by step processes for ideas they find confusing.
Also, remind them that languages are somewhat chaotic systems where memorisation plays a large role, so they should know that understanding is not everything. Practice is essential.
Learning style?
Lastly, this is not a depiction of a learning style, as I am aware that the theory that classifies students based on the way they absorb and retain information relies on scarce factual foundation. This is only an article on how to help students who feel lost when they don’t understand what’s going on.
Read Andrew’s books here: www.andymiles.com