LEARNING STYLES PREFERENCES OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE LEARNERS IN A SECONDARY SCHOOL
Zarina Ashikin Zakaria, Faculty of Major Languages, Islamic University College of Malaysia, Bandar Baru Nilai, 71800 Nilai, Negeri Sembilan, 06-7988456, 06- 7988598
[email protected], www.kuim.edu.my Abstract
This study investigates the learning styles preferences of different ethnic (Malay, Chinese and Indian) English Language learners in a secondary school. The purpose of this research is to find any difference in learning styles preferences among Malay, Chinese and Indian English Language learners due to their diverse ethnic and cultural backgrounds. The researchers focus on four major learning styles – auditory, visual, tactile and kinaesthetic. Respondents of different ethnic are selected and questionnaires are used to collect data
1. Introduction
Students learn in many ways – by seeing and hearing, reflecting and acting, memorising and visualising. How much a student learns in a class is governed by that students’ native ability and prior preparation and also by the compatibility of his or her characteristic approach to learning. It is important for the students to know their learning styles so as to maximise their potentials to facilitate learning.
This paper is conceived to identify the preferred learning styles of ESL learners in a secondary school. As we know there are many types of learning styles – auditory, visual, kinesthetic, tactile and others. This paper also looks at how learners’ cultural background influences their learning styles.
It is hoped that this paper will be an eye opener to ESL practitioners. It is important for them to know the learners’ learning styles so as to match their teaching styles. Should there be a mismatch between learning styles and teaching styles, something has to be done to eradicate the problem. In addition, this can help the educators to design learning environments that accommodate a variety of learning styles. Besides that, it is hoped that this paper will benefit ESL learners. As learners, it is important for them to know their preferred learning styles so as to maximise their learning. Furthermore, learners will also realise their full potential and this can help them to learn more effectively. Matching teaching styles and learning styles can help learners to make the most of a learning situation.
2. Body of paper 2.1 Definitions
Reid (1998) defines learning styles as internally based characteristics often not perceived or consciously used by learners for the intake and comprehension of new information. According to Nunan (1995) learning styles refers to any individual’s preferred ways of going about learning which result from personality variables including psychological and cognitive make-up, socio- cultural background and educational experience. In simpler words, learning styles refer to the different approaches learners use in their learning process.
Learning styles are different from learning strategies. Reid (1998) defines learning strategies as external skills often used consciously by students to improve their learning including meta
cognitive strategies, cognitive strategies and social strategies. In a similar light, Nunan (1995) defines learning strategies as the mental processes which learners employ to learn and use the target language.
2.2 Dimensions of Learning Styles
In this section the six most frequently used types of learning styles are discussed. These learning styles are adapted from Reid’s Perceptual Learning Style Preference Questionnaire (1998). The four learning styles are visual, auditory, kinesthetic, tactile, group and individual. The descriptions of each learning styles which are adapted from Reid (1998) are as follow :
Visual Learning Style Preference
Students learn well from seeing words in books, on the board and in workbooks. They remember and understand information and instructions better it they read them. They don’t need much oral explanation and they can often learn on their own without a book. They should take notes of lectures and oral directions if they want to remember the information.
Auditory learning Style Preference
Students learn from hearing words spoken and from oral explanation. They may remember information by reading aloud or by moving their lips as they read, especially when they are learning new material. They benefit from hearing audio-tapes, lectures and class discussions.
They benefit from making tapes to listen to, by teaching other students and by conversing with their teacher.
Kinesthetic Learning Style Preference
Students learn best by experience, by being involved physically in classroom experiences. They remember information well when they actively participate in activities, field trips and role-playing in the classroom. A combination of stimuli for example, an audio tape combined with an activity will help them understand new material.
Tactile Learning Style Preference
Students learn best when they have the opportunity to do ‘hands-on’ experiences with materials.
That is, working on experiments in a lab, handling and building models, and touching and working with materials provide them with the most successful learning situations. Writing notes or instructions can help them remember information and physical involvement in class-related activities may help them understand new information.
Group Learning Style Preference
Students learn more easily when they study with at least one other student and they will be more successful completing work well when they work with others. They value group interaction and class work with other students and they remember information better when they work with two or three classmates. The simulation they receive from group work helps them learn and understand new information.
Individual Learning Style Preference
Students learn best when they work alone and they remember information they learn by themselves. They understand material best when they learn it alone and they make better progress in learning when they work by themselves.
2.3 Literature Review
Keefe (in Park, 1997) described learning styles as cognitive, affective, physiological traits that are relatively stable indicators of how learners perceive, interact with and respond to the learning
environment. More specifically, style refers to a pervasive quality in the learning strategies or the learning behaviour of an individual. In addition, learning style is a biological and developmental set of personal characteristics that makes the identical instruction effective for some students and ineffective for others.
Many researches have been conducted to identify cultural differences in the learning styles of various ethnic groups. Park (1997) conducted a comparative study of Chinese, Filipino, Korean, Vietnamese and Anglo students in secondary schools and concluded that Korean, Chinese and Filipino students were more visual than Anglos. He also found out that Korean, Chinese and Anglo students showed negative preferences for group learning while Vietnamese showed a major preference and Filipino students showed a minor preference.
Similarly in the research with students of diverse background, Ramirez and Castaneda (in Park, 2002) discovered that European American students tended to be the most field-independent learners while Mexican American, American Indian and African American students tended to be field sensitive (dependent) with Mexican Americans the most field sensitive. Field sensitive group tended to learn best in situations that emphasised analytical tasks and with materials related to a social context whereas field-dependent learners tended to learn best in highly social context.
These learners were likely to do best with materials that had human, social context and in situations guided by a teacher and in cooperation with other learners.
In a comparative study of college students learning ESL conducted by Reid, she reported significant cultural differences in visual, auditory, kinaesthetic, tactile, group and individual learning styles among Korean, Chinese, Japanese, Malay, Arab and Spanish students. She found that college ESL students strongly preferred kinaesthetic and tactile learning styles and that most groups showed a negative preference for group learning. She also found that students who had been in the United States for more than three years were significantly more auditory in their learning styles preferences than those who had been in the United States for shorter periods of time. The means for the learning style preferences of those who had lived and studied in the United States the longest most closely resembled the means for the preference of native speakers of English. In addition, Korean students were the most visual in their learning styles preferences and were significantly more visual than the U.S and Japanese students. Chinese and Arab students were strong visual learners. Japanese students were the least auditory of all learners and were significantly less auditory than Chinese and Arab Americans both of whom expressed a strong preference for auditory learning. English speakers rated group work lower than all other language groups and significantly lower than Malay speakers. Reid’s findings clearly showed significant implications for ESL instruction at the college level.
3. Research Methodology
3.1 Respondents
The respondents for this study were Form 2 students of a private secondary school in Kuala Lumpur. They were all ESL learners. Their level of English was high Intermediate to Advanced and most of them came from English speaking background in which most of the time they used English as a mean of communication. 60 respondents were selected to respond to the questionnaire and they were of different ethnic background – Malay, Chinese and Indian. Each ethnic group had 30 respondents.
3.2 Instrument
In this study, Reid’s (1987) questionnaire of perceptual learning styles was used to collect data.
The instrument consisted of randomly arranged sets of 5 Likert-type statements ( strongly agree, agree, undecided, disagree, strongly disagree) on each of the 6 learning styles preferences to be measured – visual, auditory, kinaesthetic, tactile, group and individual.
3.3 Procedure
4. Results, analysis and discussions 4.1 Result of the survey
To analyse the data, Reid’s interpretation for the three levels of preference – major, minor and negligible is referred. Major learning style refers to the style that the learners learn best whereas minor learning style indicates areas where learners can also function well and a negligible score indicates that learners may have difficulty learning in that way.
Style Level Visual Auditory Kinesthetic Tactile Group Individual
Major 9(30%) 13 (43.33%) 21 (70%) 17 (51.67%) 14 (46.67%) 12 (40%)
Minor 18 (60%) 17 (57.67%) 9 (30%) 13 (43.33%) 13 (43.33%) 10 (33.33%)
Negligible 3 (10%) - - - 3 (10%) 8 (26.67%)
Table 1. Result of perceptual learning style preferences survey on Malay students of a secondary school
The result shows the two major learning styles preferred by the Malay students are Kinesthetic with 21 out of 30 students (70%) and Tactile learning style with 17 out of 30 students (51.67%).
From the findings we can see that 8 out of 30 Malay students preferred not to study individually at all. Another finding, about 46.67% (14 out of 30) of the Malay students preferred Group learning style very strongly.
Style Level Visual Auditory Kinesthetic Tactile Group Individual
Major 18 (60%) 15 (50%) 9 (30%) 7 (23.33%) 19 (63.33%) 8 (26.67%)
Minor 9 (30%) 10 (33.33%) 21 (70%) 20 (66.67%) 8 (26.67%) 20 (66.67%)
Negligible 3 (10%) 5 (16.67%) - 3 (10%) 3 (10%) 2 (6.67%)
Table 2. Result of perceptual learning style preferences survey on Chinese students of a secondary school
The result of the Chinese students shows that the major learning styles preferred by them are Visual with 18 out of 30 students (60%) and Auditory learning style with 15 out of 30 students (50%). From the finding, we can see majority of the Chinese students that is 20 out of 30 students (66.67%) did not prefer Tactile learning style. A large number of the students, that is 19 out of 30 Chinese students (63.33%) strongly preferred Group learning style and only a small number, that is 8 out of 30 (26.67%) Chinese students preferred to study individually.
Style Level Visual Auditory Kinesthetic Tactile Group Individual
Major 23 (76.67%) 5 (16.67%) 22 (73.33%) 7 (23.33%) 8 (26.67%) 14 (46.67%) Minor 6 (20%) 20 (66.67%) 7 (23.22%) 20 (66.67%) 17 (56.67%) 8 (76.67%) Negligible 1 (3.33%) 5 (16.67%) 1 (3.33%) 3 (10%) 5 (16.67%) 8 (26.67%)
Table 3. Result of perceptual learning style preferences survey on Indian students of a secondary school
As for the result of the Indian students’ preferences, it shows that 23 out of 30 (76.6%) Indian students preferred Visual learning style and 22 out of 30 (73.33%) Indian students preferred Kinesthetic learning style. Besides that, about 14 out of 30 (46.67%) of the Indian students preferred Individual learning style compared to Group learning style and only a small number of Indian students (26.67%) preferred Group learning style.
4.2 Analysis and discussion
From the results of all ethnic groups of students (Malay, Chinese and Indian) we can see that different races preferred different learning styles. The Malay students preferred Kinesthetic and Tactile learning styles while the Chinese students preferred Visual and Auditory learning styles.
On the other hand, the Indian students preferred Visual and Kinesthetic learning styles.
In addition to that, most Malay students preferred to study individually similar to most of the Indian students whereas most Chinese students preferred Group learning style.
The factors that may contribute to the students’ preferences of learning styles are the personality of the individuals and also their cultural background. As for the Malay students, they preferred Kinesthetic & Tactile learning styles. Based on the observation, most of the students were active learners. They were enthusiastic and eager to learn new things. Most of them preferred these learning styles compared to Auditory and Visual perhaps due to their concentration span was too short compared to students of other races. They preferred activities which involved their physical such as role-playing, sketch, drama, project work and many others.
As for the Chinese students, they preferred Visual & Auditory learning styles which are different from the Malay students. This group of students were less active in which they would prefer to listen to the teachers than doing things physically. In learning English as a second language, they like to learn grammar in which they can concentrate to the teacher’s teaching. This includes drilling, reading comprehension, listening activities and others. These groups of students can acquire the skills better in terms of grammar as they can follow grammar lessons well and also they can imitate correct pronunciation as demonstrated by the teacher.
On the other hand, the Indian students preferred Visual and Kinesthetic learning styles. This is due to the reason that they were able to follow whatever the teacher taught and apply that during the practical. During lesson they would listen and watch closely what the teacher was teaching, and then, when it was time for them to apply what they have been taught, they would be able to do so. For an example, when they were asked to stage a drama. The teacher showed them a movie and they watched the whole movie. Then, when they were asked to stage a drama of the same movie, they were able to do so successfully. Hence, this group of students learned best by Visual and Kinesthetic learning styles.
All in all it can be seen that students of different ethic background do have different preferred learning styles in learning English as a second language. The factors that contribute to their preferences would be their ethnic background, their culture as well as their own personality.
Therefore, this study has proven that ethnic background does influence the students’ preferences of learning styles in learning English as a second language. However, the respondents’
preferences do not represent the whole ethnics as this study was conducted on a small number of respondents in a school. Perhaps if a study is conducted elsewhere, the result might not be similar.
5. Conclusions
This study was conducted to identify the learning styles preferences of ESL learners of a secondary school. The respondents were of different ethnic background and this was done to see whether ethnic background does influence their learning styles preferences. It was proven that ethnic background does influence their preferences in learning styles. Another contributing factor was the students’ personalities. Therefore, English language educators should be aware of the students’ differences in learning styles preferences especially in Malaysian context. Students of different ethnic background are put in one group (class) and based on this study different ethnic background of students has different preferences. Therefore, teachers should be able to match their teaching styles to the students’ learning styles preferences. As mentioned earlier, a mismatch between teachers’ teaching style and students’ learning styles may decrease the students’ interests to learn the target language. This may also lead to truancy, failing exams and many others.
Lastly, the result of this study may not represent the whole because the number of respondents was only 30 per ethnic group. Perhaps if this study is conducted elsewhere with different respondents, the result may be different. Thus the results gained in this study cannot represent all ESL students of different ethnic group in general.
References
[1] Reid, J.M., (1998) Understanding Learning Styles in the Second Language Classroom.
Prentice Hall Regents.
[2] Nunan, D., (1995) Language Teaching Methodology: A Textbook for Teachers. Phoenix ELT
[3] Keefe, J.W., (1979) Learning Style Overview, Students Learning Style : Diagnosing and Presecribing Programs. In Park, C.C., Cross cultural Differences in Learning Styles of Secondary English Learners. Bilingual Research Journal, 26(2), 213-229.
[4] Ramirez, M. & and Castaneda, A. (1974) Cultural Democracy, Cognitive Development and Education. Academic Press.
[5] Reid, J. (1987) The LearningStyle Preferences of ESL Students. TESOL Quarterly, 21(1), 87- 111
