English Cognitive Styles

Cognitive styles
Role and importance of cognitive styles

Cognitive styles can be seen as an application of cognitive abilities that have developed in a person, and are “preferred or habitual patterns of mental functioning” (Oxford, Holloway and Horton-Murillo, 1992, p.440). Cognitive styles are typical tendencies that influence how a person perceives his/her surroundings and makes sense ofthe world, serving as a basis for how the person gathers, organises and processes information when learning.

Applied to a classroom situation, this means that if content and learning materials are presented in a way that is at odds with an individual’s cognitive style, the individual may not be able to gather, organise and process the information in an effective way and this may “affectstudents’ learning potential and their attitudes toward English and toward learning in general” (Oxford et al., 1992, p.439). Cognitive style appears to be a relatively stable trait within an individual that is connected to their personality (Brown, 2000) and may also have a cultural component (Cook, 2001).

Positive effects of knowledge of cognitive styles

There are three main aspects as to how aknowledge of learners’ cognitive styles can assist a teacher to be effective in the classroom.

Style awareness

To avoid possible conflicts and enhance classroom relations and teacher-student rapport, the teacher has to be aware of his/her own cognitive style and how this may be reflected in his/her teaching style and “try to ‘overcome’ their own style tendencies because of the students’ needs”(Oxford et al., 1992, p.450) by consciously planning for the inclusion of different styles within the holistic-analytic and verbal-imagery dimensions.

It is important not just for a teacher to know her own style and the preferred styles of learners, but also for learners to develop an increased awareness of both ‘their style’, and alternative styles. This can lead them to:
• Take moreresponsibility for their learning through:
o Understanding and applying the learning strategies best suited to them (e.g. a visual learner producing vocabulary cards with pictures and words)
o Trying to use non-preferred styles that may be appropriate in certain situations (e.g. ‘levellers’ paying particular attention to word order or the different use of synonyms, ‘reflectives’ working on being morespontaneous in conversations and brainstorming tasks)
• Be aware of and accept differences in peers and teachers enabling them to:
o Learn from each other
o Work cooperatively and inclusively
o Reconsider when ‘failure’ can be attributable to a dissonance between their learning style and the teacher’s teaching style.

Style matching

Knowing the different cognitive styles of learners givesteachers the opportunity to increase classroom efficiency by presenting material in many different ways, in order “to offer a myriad of multisensory, abstract and concrete learning activities that meet the needs of many different learning styles” (Oxford et al., 1992, p.452). It is an aspect of a teacher’s responsibility to “modify the learning task they use in their classes in a way that may bringthe best out of particular learners with particular learning styles” (Cohen and Dörnyei, 2002, p.176),

In analysing my own cognitive style, I tend to be process information visually and verbally, sharpen rather than level information, construct knowledge in a holistic type way, and alternate between analytic and relational type conceptualisation of information. So, in the classroom, I need tobe aware, for example, of a tendency to analyse language beyond the point of usefulness to learners, and of an over-reliance on verbal processing, when a picture, diagram, or mindmap may be of more use. (In a recent dictagloss activity, a group of learners asked if they could draw the information and speak about their drawing, rather than write out a written composition; when they completed the...