A Handbook for Teaching and Learning in Higher Education Enhancing academic and Practice

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Teaching in the disciplines
1 Understanding how languages are learnt
Providing students with an insight into the nature of language learning means explaining
to them the reasons for engaging in particular classroom activities but also teaching them
proven strategies for:
• learning vocabulary: for example, using word roots and affixes, guessing strategies,
word cards, imagery or other mnemonics (Nation, 2001);
• learning grammar: colour-coding structures, using mnemonics for rules;
• reading: activating background knowledge, making use of titles or illustrations,
skimming and scanning texts, spotting cohesive and coherence markers (Nuttall,
1996);
• listening: listening with a purpose, practising gist listening by using background
knowledge, listening with and without a text (Broady, 2002);
• writing: producing drafts, checking written work, spotting errors (Sharpling, 2002);
• speaking: reading and repeating after a tape for pronunciation, learning phrases and
techniques for seeking repetition/explanation, exploring ideas for increasing oral
interaction outside the classroom (Tyler, 2003);
• making the most of CALL and the internet: working in pairs/individually, focusing on
personal weaknesses, using FL spell-checkers, accessing online dictionaries and using
the internet as a source of information and means of communication (Dudeney, 2000;
Davies et al., 2005).
Such strategies and techniques can usefully be listed in a course or module guide at the
start of the year but should also be integrated into language-learning tasks themselves in
order to demonstrate their relevance and applicability and to encourage their transfer to
similar tasks beyond the classroom.
2 Identifying preferred learning style
Learning styles denote students’ individual approaches to learning. They are largely
determined by a person’s psychological make-up but are also shaped, to a lesser extent,
by upbringing and education. A distinction is normally made between cognitive styles
(how we process information) and learning styles (how we acquire and retain
information). Although research has found distinct strengths and learning preferences for
such major cognitive styles as ‘field independent/field dependent’ and ‘holistic/analytic’,
there appears to be no overall advantage in language learning for either style.
There have been various attempts to classify learning styles, including analytical,
concrete, communicative and authority oriented or visual, auditory and haptic (for an
overview and an established learning styles questionnaire, see Littlemore, 2002). We
should remember, however, that any style identified in a particular student is only ever
a ‘preferred’ style and that the most effective learners apply different styles strategically