12.3.4
Teaching techniques for a more balanced curriculum

In the light of what you have read in 12.3.1-12.3.3, you may feel that you would like to appeal to a wider variety of learning styles in your teaching. Here are some ideas on how you might do this:

  • Use visual aids: illustrations, photographs, maps, diagrams, videos, films.
  • Encourage visualization: generating and manipulating mental imagery.
  • Provide concrete examples reinforced by student-generated examples.
  • Make use of metaphor, analogy, and paradox.
  • Employ language that makes a topic 'come alive'.
  • Help students to make connections between ideas.
  • Link the material to students' lives and interests.
  • Provide opportunities for experiential, 'hands-on' learning.
  • Make use of graphic organizers (flow charts, time lines, etc).
  • Provide opportunities for multi-sensory learning.
  • Encourage creative writing.
  • Use music.
  • Employ creative dramatics: simulation and role-playing.
  • Use video interactively (prediction, empathy, etc).
  • Use Total Physical Response (physically acting out language).

Task 10

Assess the extent to which you accommodate different learning styles in your day-to-day language teaching by completing Kate Kinsella's (1990) 'Learning Style Accommodation Form' below.

Rate yourself for each teaching behaviour using the following scale:

3 - Excellent
2 - Good
1 - Needs improvement
0 - Have never considered doing this

Teaching behaviour
0 - 3
  1. I have identified my own learning style preferences, and make an effort not to bias my teaching in favour of students with similar learning styles.
 
  1. I help my students identify their learning style strengths, and suggest specific strategies they can use to cope with incompatible teaching styles and learning environments.
 
  1. I encourage my students to inform me of any reasonable modifications I can make in my instructional practices that will help them become more comfortable and confident learners in my class.
 
  1. I make a conscious effort to diversify my instructional strategies to enhance learning for students with different perceptual strengths.
 
  1. My voice can be heard everywhere in the classroom.
 
  1. I enunciate clearly and exaggerate intonation to emphasize key words and phrases.
 
  1. I pause adequately between phrases and statements to allow time for reflective thought-processing.
 
  1. I emphasize and clarify ideas through gesture, facial expression, and dramatization.
 
  1. I complement information relayed orally with visual aids (eg illustrations, charts, graphs, concept maps, outlines, graphic organizers).
 
  1. I complement information conveyed through visual aids and assigned reading with oral explanations and elaborations.
 
  1. I use concrete examples and anecdotes so that students can visualize new concepts within a familiar context.
 
  1. I give a variety of explanations or examples, understanding that one may not be sufficient for all students.
 
  1. I also elicit relevant examples and explanations from my students to help individuals process new ideas and material.
 
  1. I provide ample opportunities for students to verbally explore and reinforce information that has been presented first in a lecture or reading through well-orchestrated, equitable class discussions and small-group activities.
 
  1. I activate students' background knowledge and build in considerable context before presenting new concepts, terminology, and assignments.
 
  1. I present new information both inductively and deductively so that students with different information-processing strengths can have easier access to new concepts.
 
  1. I allow students to use new skills or concepts long enough so that they are retained, thus enabling future application.
 
  1. I make explicit the rationale, goals, structure, and process for all activities and assignments.
 
  1. I break more complicated and challenging assignments down into manageable, clearly-delineated steps and model procedures.
 
  1. I distribute models of completed assignments that students can emulate (eg writing tasks, lecture notes, exam responses).
 
  1. I familiarize my students with effective learning and study strategies for my subject area (eg lecture note-taking, textbook reading, test preparation, test-taking).
 
  1. I encourage my students to be flexible, persistent learners and to experiment with different approaches to learning and studying until they find strategies that best complement their learning and work styles.
 
  1. I attempt to personalize the curriculum by relating it when possible to my students' cultures, communities, daily lives, and interests.
 
  1. I engage students in active learning and direct experience whenever possible.
  
  1. I consciously vary the activities during a class session and generally do not require students to spend the entire period on a single teacher-fronted activity (eg listening to a lengthy lecture or whole-class discussion) which is not interrupted by a writing or small-group speaking task.
 
  1. I check for comprehension at strategic points throughout the lesson, and end the class session with some form of review of the major concepts presented that day.
 
  1. I balance opportunities for students to work collaboratively with a partner or a small group as well as independently.
  
  1. I provide individualized assistance when appropriate during and/or outside of class, and I encourage students who demonstrate a greater need for mentoring and one-to-one learning to avail themselves of my assistance and any campus tutoring.
 
  1. I include a variety of exam formats in a class so that students with diverse learning and work style strengths will have more equitable opportunities to excel (eg in-class and take-home exams, subjective and objective exams, independent projects and small-group projects, written tasks/reports and oral tasks/reports).
 
  1. I familiarize my students with my exam formats and grading criteria, and give them a chance to take a practice exam each time I introduce a new exam format.
 
  1. I give my students many opportunities to succeed by testing them regularly on manageable doses of subject matter and by providing immediate constructive feedback.
 
  1. I allow my students to propose viable alternatives in demonstrating their learning or in accomplishing a task (eg giving an oral report instead of a written report; submitting a concept map instead of a formal outline for a report).
 

Need to re-read anything?
Back to Part 0 (Introduction)
Back to Part 1 (Definitions of Learner Autonomy)
Back to Part 2 (Learning strategies)
Back to the start of this part

 
previous button
next button

contents button