Learning styles and Twitter

Here is the podcast
I believe we all learn the same way, but that we have likes and dislikes. Different people like doing different things to learn. Rather than worrying about whether people are auditory learners or visual learners etc. we need to provide the greatest possible range of content and materials and help people learn the way they like to learn. Most of all we need to find ways to keep learners turned on. The enthusiasm of the teacher is important.

I talk about his here, and I question the role of Twitter. I am not against it. I have signed up. I just do not see myself following all these people and reading short messages about what they are doing. But I am willing to learn.

Comments

[John Fotheringham]

I don't care for tweets about "what I am up to" but I love finding new online resources about language learning and other topics I am interested in. As you said Steve, "We all have likes and dislikes." If you you follow people with similar likes, Twitter can be a great resource.

As an example, I just tweeted one of your Pick the Brain articles. My hope is that some of my Twitter followers will click on the link and get a new persective on language learning.

I also use Twitter as a marketing tool for my language learning website. It doesn't yet account for very much traffic, but I have only been on Twitter a short time. My hope is that I can get more and more qualified traffic as my number of followers grows. It's win-win; the better my tweets (and the better the resources I link to), the more followers and click-throughs I get.

[John Fotheringham]

Here is a great presentation on Twitter I found on Slideshare.net

http://www.slideshare.net/fgorton/twitter-social-media-4-me-by-frankgorton

You can also view my presentation there about why most language learners fail and how you can succeed:

http://www.slideshare.net/L2mastery/language-learning-why-most-fail-and-how-you-can-succeed-1586335

[Ethan Poole]

I do agree that we all learn the same, just prefer different methods. Of course, we do things better that we like. I think it is important to create a variety in the classroom to satisfy everyone's interest but also to force people to step a little outside of their comfort zone.

Also, as for Twitter, oddly most people on Twitter are not teenagers or young adults. It is primarily adults. Teenagers are on Facebook and other services. Nevertheless, I use Twitter often for communication, but not for language learning. Granted, I will often write "tweets" in Spanish or Swedish to friends who speak those languages, but I couldn't say it helps my language learning at all.

For classroom language learning, I think it is important to engage students where they want to be engaged. If they don't want to sit through a whole film or read a whole book, perhaps short 144-character messages is a good place to start to encourage them to use the foreign language on a basic level.

[Nathan]

Hi Steve,

I'd never really thought about this. I've only ever accepted that different people learn in different ways. However, after having a think about I agree with you completely.

I think it's possible for everyone to learn say through a completely audio medium, or a visual medium. The reason why some people are better than others at learning through a particular style is because, as you said, they enjoy it better. I'm of the belief that anyone can learn a language (and pretty much anything for that matter) if they put the time and effort into it. However, if a person doesn't enjoy what they're doing then they won't put the effort in, therefore they won't learn.

Ok Twitter. My view of Twitter and other similar things is that they are simply another resource to use and communicate in. Some people who don't have a lot of time to sit down and read a book in their target language may find it useful as a tool to practice the language they have learned. So, I think it is practical up to a point inb language learning especially for those who don't have as much time to spend on practicing as they might like.

[pointyr]

First you say,
"I believe we all learn the same way, but that we have likes and dislikes."

and then you say,
"Different people like doing different things to learn. Rather than worrying about whether people are auditory learners or visual learners etc. we need to provide the greatest possible range of content and materials and help people learn the way they like to learn. "

So which is it? What do the educational psychologists say?

[Steve Kaufmann]

pointyr,

I do not see a contradiction. I have no idea what educational psychologist say.

I have read books on how the brain learns, and it did not seem that there were differences between how people learn. But our emotions, our likes and dislikes do influence how we learn.

[Steve Kaufmann]

John,
I enjoyed your slidedshare presentation.

[pointyr]

Steve,
I would be interested to know what educational psychologists would say. Those are the people who could find the link in the contradiction. Do people learn the same way or do they learn differently? Maybe the link is about thinking styles or learning styles, but this is something that the experts in educational psychology should explain.

[Steve Kaufmann]

pointyr,
I do not place much faith in educational psychologists. I prefer to read what neuro scientists tell us based on research of how the brain works. We will not see eye to eye on this one.

[John Fotheringham]

I recommend that you send out notifications on Twitter when you post new blog posts. Just make sure to include the full URL so that it is clickable.

In fact, this blogpost itself would make for a great tweet! I'll go ahead and post it on my Twitter account now.

[pointyr]

Steve,
Whichever experts have something to say about the way different people learn, those are who we should use as well studied sources. No matter if they be educational psychologists, neuroscientists, psycholinguists, archeological linguists; those people should be the ones who can explain a linkage between the too very different learning style opinions. Without what some of those experts could tell us, we are left just with our opinions.

[Steve Kaufmann]

I have less faith in these experts than you do. I prefer to rely on my experience, observations and research that makes sense to me. I prefer to think for myself.

[John Fotheringham]

I'm glad you enjoyed the presentation, Steve. Some of the content is inspired by things you have said here on your blog. I have just uploaded the complete version if you are interested:

http://www.slideshare.net/L2mastery/language-learning-why-most-fail-and-how-you-can-succeed-complete

With regard to the expert vs. personal opinion & experience debate, I think that both are valuable and both are fallible. The problem with many expert studies is that they are motivated more by discovering something NEW than something USEFUL. Also, many researchers let their opinions or desired outcomes cloud their judgment and interpretations of the results. I think Twain's famous quote says it best: "There are 3 kinds of lies: lies, damned lies and statistics."

[Keith]

pointyr,

There is no contradiction in Steve's statements. The only contradiction is between the way everybody learns and the way each person says he likes to study.

You have a brain don't you? Everybody has a brain. Where does the learning take place? Inside the brain. Are people's brains different?

[Chris Sarda]

A Poem

-Steve prepares himself for a battle and a discussion,
-and everyone agrees with him.
-Steve stubbornly gives his views he sees as truth,
-everyone disagrees with him.
-So what is it that Steve should learn?
-What should we learn?

Since it's in poem form only some of us can learn anything from it.

[a_bunch_a_noise]

As soon as I discovered the Twitter I asked my self a question, can it facilitate my language learning activities in some ways. The answer was yes. It could encourage me to write casual/lively texts in foreign language anyhow. But over the time I lost my interest in writing the repetitive texts as I feel good, whether the weather is fine/bad/beautiful and so on, I am listening to French, happy or not entirely happy with my language activities of today. It is like talking with/to oneself. But on the other hand, I've strengthen the feeling that simple phrases, not grammatically correct sentences are the pretty powerful communicational means. Using them in real life situations can be more preferable, than flawless language talk. It simply lets the context to fulfill the gaps as to master that in foreign language is not that easy task at all.

What it is important especially for beginners is to feel the progress. So writing simple progress report messages in itself is not that useless task at all. Other things that I found also there were Twitter feeds as vocabulary learning tools like 10/5/1 word(s) of the day. It is a social networking site and what we can find and do there depends entirely on our own liking and activity there.

[sabroso164]

We also need to remember that Twitter is used as a micro-blogging tool. I primarily use it to write short blog posts in the languages I would like to practice. The amount of effort it takes to write something witty in another language for me is worth the effort in the practice of vocabulary, grammar and spelling. Je crois qu'il est un tour de force !

There, short and sweet -- but a bit longer than 140 characters :-)

[Tecla]

I am relatively new to Twitter as well. I find it useful for promoting cultural events on my website and following organisations who promote arts and culture in London. It is not comparable to any other social networking sites, and does take some time to get used to the concept of micro-blogging. Although I can see it's practicality in driving traffic to your site, I cannot see it as a learning tool (but saying that, I have learned new things through clicking on other people's links).