Learning Strategies And Learning Styles

Learning Strategies and Learning Styles
Reading the Language Learning Styles and Strategies an Overview by Rebecca L. Oxford Ph. D. I find that is very interesting how she synthesizes her work; shementions in her introduction that there are many factors that will determine how a student learns. Learning Styles are the general approaches, global or analytic, auditory or visual these are somepatterns that students use to acquire a language. Learning Strategies are defined as specific actions, behaviors, steps, or techniques. Students use the strategies when practicing with a conversationpartner or when in a difficult language task. Learning strategies can be classified into six groups: cognitive, metacognitive, memory-related, compensatory, affective and social. Overall the studentshould feel confident and experience low anxiety to perform well.
Learning Styles: among the most strongly associated with L2 learning are sensory preferences, personality types, desired degree ofgenerality and biological differences. The four main areas for Sensory preferences are visual, auditory kinesthetic and tactile. Sensory preferences refer to the physical perceptual learning channels withwhich the student is most comfortable. Visual students feel most comfortable with visual stimulation, auditory students feel most comfortable with oral directions, conversation and lectures,Kinesthetic and tactile students feel more comfortable with tangible objects, collages and flash cards. What Reid demonstrated with ESL student is very interesting knowing that the culture background has suchan influence in the learning style. Personality Types is so important in L2 learning this is another aspect which consist in four strands: extraverted vs. introverted; intuitive-random vs. sensing-sequential; thinking vs. feeling; and closure-oriented/judging vs. open/perceiving.
Learning Strategies are specific behaviors or thought processes that students use to enhance their L2 learning....