Hello again.

In this week’s Language and Technology lab, we were given a link to click on which would take us to a quiz that would tell us exactly what our individual learning styles were. At first, I just clicked the link and ticked the boxes because I was being told to, not out of any genuine interest in the outcome. When I did get my results however, I realized that the feedback I was being given was a lot more interesting than I had anticipated.

I was told that I am a reflective, intuitive, verbal, global learner.  I don’t expect anyone to automatically understand what that means because I didn’t have a clue. So off I went and did a little research. What I found was some information in regards to each of those four layers of my apparent learning style. I was able to relate this information and descriptions to experiences I have had as a student in the past and so I decided to also take a look at the section that gave learning advice based on each layer, which I found made a lot more sense than I thought it would. I had already figured out some of these methods  for myself through trial and error, and had been employing them for quite some time.

As interesting as all this may be, the kind of learning style that I have and the learning methods that are best for me, is not the main topic of this blog post. The main topic revolves around the personalisation of language learning.

If it was possible to do so completely, I would definitely personalise my own language learning. There are a few ways I could do this, one way for example with French Grammar. Rather than having something explained to me for five minutes and then immediately trying to do grammar excercises in a group within the same class, I would be taught the principles in class then look over them and try to apply them myself in my own time. However, because we are in the age of interactive learning this would be quite difficult to achieve without annoying lecturer or tutor I come into contact with.

I believe the only way to fully personalise my language learning would be to have a one-on-one teacher who adapts their teaching style to fit my learning style. This, of course, is very unrealistic.

It goes without saying that there would be many advantages to personalising language learning. Faster learning, better understanding etc, but there would also be at least one major disadvantage to it; learning from others. Sometimes I feel I am fully competent in a subject and I’m confident in it, but then one of my classmates will ask a question to solve a problem I hadn’t yet thought of and would likely encounter further down the line. Getting the answer to a question I didn’t know I needed answered has spared me from being stumped when moving onto the more complex subjects.

All in all, personalising our learning experience would obviously benefit any student. However in the classroom environment it is simply not possible and so we should all instead do our best to personalise our learning when doing independent study.

If you’re interested in finding out what your individual learning style is then click on this link: http://www.engr.ncsu.edu/learningstyles/ilsweb.html

You never know, you might find some information that could completely change your learning experience!

Until next time,

Kayla xo