Kamis, 21 April 2011

LEARNING STYLE vs. TEACHING STYLE


Learning style is a way in which a learner begins to concern on, to process, and to retain new and difficult information (Dunn & Dunn, 1987). People perceive and process information in various ways according to their perceptual and sensory strengths. This combination of perceiving and processing is formed by the unique learning styles. Hunt (1979) states learning style as the student’s style that describes a student in learning in which they try to create the best way to learn. Learning style describes how a student learns not what he has learned. Davis (1989) suggests that everyone tends to have a preferred learning style and adapt to their spare based on three types of learning; they are affective, cognitive and psychomotor that is called learning style. In other words, learning style is the best way of the students learning to explore their-selves related to cognitive, affective and psychomotor factors. While teaching style is supposed to define as the behaviors that teachers exhibit as they interact with learners (Heredia, 1999). Like students and learning styles, teachers may exhibit a teaching style preference while being able to teach in a number of different styles.
Types of learning style and teaching style
Potter and Hernacki (2004) identified characteristics of each learning style as below;
Learning style
Visual learners
Auditory learners
Kinesthetic learners
 Well-organized.
 Talk fast.
 Long term planner and organizer.
 Careful for detail.
 Emphasize on performance, either look or presentation.
 Vivid imagination.
 Remember what was read or seen in visual association.
 Undisturbed by noise.
 Information may not exist if it is not seen or written down.
 Avid readers.
 Like written reports better than verbal ones.
 Take actions after deeply consideration.
 Answer with short answer Yes or No.
 Prefer to demonstration rather than speech.
 Love arts than music.
 Know what to say but difficult in arranging the words.
 Sometimes lose attention when they want to pay attention.
   Remember what they hear.
   Talk while they write.
  Need phonics.
  A sophisticated speaker and listener.
  Remember names, but forget faces.
  Eyes move down and right when listening to others.
  Remember by listening, especially music.
  Distracted by noise.
  Games and pictures are annoying and distracting.
  Write lightly and not always legibly.
  Written information will have little meaning.
  Love music.
  Like joking than reading comics.
  Listen to something inside themselves, rather than opposite speakers.
  Remember what was done, not what was seen or talked about.
  Don't hear things well.
  Touch and movement are important.
  Not avid readers.
  Attack things physically (fight, hit, pound).
        Learn by imitation and practice.
  Touch things to get a sense of them.
  Love talking about feelings.
  Difficult in reading. 
                Love games.
  Impulsive.
  Appear slow if information is not presented in their style.
  Like to dress comfortably.
  Unconsciously touch people a lot.
Teaching styles are taken similar to student’s learning styles consisting of visual teaching style, audio teaching style and kinesthetic teaching style. They can be describe briefly as below.
(1) Visual teachers are the teachers who teach by providing reading matter. They teach better by using more reading materials or textbook and writing on the chalkboard. Visual teachers always provide detailed instructions. When teaching a new skill, they will rather demonstrate the skill than provide a listening task. They also usually present the materials by using visual displays (pictures, diagrams, graphs, etc).
(2) Auditory teachers are the teachers who teach by providing listening materials. They find it useful to read out loud when reading the textbook. They would rather provide a listening lecture than read the textbook. They usually explain the detailed information rather than write all materials on the board. They also love to make a classroom discussion and use the tape recorder or listening activity frequently.
(3) Kinesthetic teachers are the teachers who teach experiential learning or a-hands-on approach and total physical involvement with a learning situation. They usually provide learning by doing exercise or role-playing. They participate the students in related activities. They provide a huge opportunity to the students to explore their feelings about the relating teaching activity which is why they involve students’ experiences in teaching. 
Effect of learning style and teaching style
Matching of learning style and teaching style brings a tendency to the better performance to learner’s achievement. The effect of the matching between learning style and teaching style is that the learners can be more motivated in learning activity towards English as a foreign language to achieve better achievement particularly academic achievement. In other side, the mismatching plays an important role to make positive challenges particularly to English teacher in order to face the various of learning styles, kinds of materials and keeping the students’ motivations in learning. When the students are motivated in learning, indirectly the learners can achieve high achievements in cognitive, psychomotor and affective.
In sum, the students’ learning styles and teachers’ teaching styles need more attention particularly by the English teachers in order to achieve the teaching and learning objectives and to motivate the students in learning English which helps them to achieve high learning.