Social Learning Theory

"Learning would be exceedingly laborious, not to mention hazardous, if people had to rely solely on the effects of their own actions to inform them what to do. Fortunately, most human behavior is learned observationally through modeling: from observing others one forms an idea of how new behaviors are performed, and on later occasions this coded information serves as a guide for action."
-Albert Bandura, Social Learning Theory, 1977

What is Social Learning Theory?

The social learning theory proposed by Albert Bandura has become perhaps the most influential theory of learning and development. While rooted in many of the basic concepts of traditional learning theory, Bandura believed that direct reinforcement could not account for all types of learning.

His theory added a social element, arguing that people can learn new information and behaviors by watching other people. Known as observational learning (or modeling), this type of learning can be used to explain a wide variety of behaviors.

Basic Social Learning Concepts

There are three core concepts at the heart of social learning theory. First is the idea that people can learn through observation. Next is the idea that internal mental states are an essential part of this process. Finally, this theory recognizes that just because something has been learned, it does not mean that it will result in a change in behavior.

Let's explore each of these concepts in greater depth.

1. People can learn through observation.

Observational Learning

In his famous Bobo doll experiment, Bandura demonstrated that children learn and imitate behaviors they have observed in other people. The children in Bandura’s studies observed an adult acting violently toward a Bobo doll. When the children were later allowed to play in a room with the Bobo doll, they began to imitate the aggressive actions they had previously observed.

Bandura identified three basic models of observational learning:

1. A live model, which involves an actual individual demonstrating or acting out a behavior.
2. A verbal instructional model, which involves descriptions and explanations of a behavior.
3. A symbolic model, which involves real or fictional characters displaying behaviors in books, films, television programs, or online media.

2. Mental states are important to learning.

Intrinsic Reinforcement

Bandura noted that external, environmental reinforcement was not the only factor to influence learning and behavior. He described intrinsic reinforcement as a form of internal reward, such as pride, satisfaction, and a sense of accomplishment. This emphasis on internal thoughts and cognitions helps connect learning theories to cognitive developmental theories. While many textbooks place social learning theory with behavioral theories, Bandura himself describes his approach as a 'social cognitive theory.'

3. Learning does not necessarily lead to a change in behavior.

While behaviorists believed that learning led to a permanent change in behavior, observational learning demonstrates that people can learn new information without demonstrating new behaviors.

The Modeling Process

Not all observed behaviors are effectively learned. Factors involving both the model and the learner can play a role in whether social learning is successful. Certain requirements and steps must also be followed. The following steps are involved in the observational learning and modeling process:

• Attention:
  In order to learn, you need to be paying attention. Anything that detracts your attention is going to have a negative effect on observational learning. If the model interesting or there is a novel aspect to the situation, you are far more likely to dedicate your full attention to learning.


• Retention:
  The ability to store information is also an important part of the learning process. Retention can be affected by a number of factors, but the ability to pull up information later and act on it is vital to observational learning.


• Reproduction:
  Once you have paid attention to the model and retained the information, it is time to actually perform the behavior you observed. Further practice of the learned behavior leads to improvement and skill advancement.


• Motivation:
  Finally, in order for observational learning to be successful, you have to be motivated to imitate the behavior that has been modeled. Reinforcement and punishment play an important role in motivation. While experiencing these motivators can be highly effective, so can observing other experience some type of reinforcement or punishment. For example, if you see another student rewarded with extra credit for being to class on time, you might start to show up a few minutes early each day.

Final Thoughts

In addition to influencing other psychologists, Bandura's social learning theory has had important implication in the field of eduction. Today, both teachers and parents recognize the importance of modeling appropriate behaviors. Other classroom strategies such as encouraging children and building self-efficacy are also rooted in social learning theory.

Kolb's Learning Styles

Kolb's model of learning styles is one of the best-known and widely used learning style theories. Psychologist David Kolb first outlined his theory of learning styles in 1984. He believed that our individual learning styles emerge due to our genetics, life experiences, and the demands of our current environment. In addition to describing four different learning styles, Kolb also developed a theory of experiential learning and a learning style inventory.

In his experiential theory, learning is viewed as a four-stage cycle. First, immediate and concrete experiences serve as a basis for observation. Next, the individual reflects on these observations and begins to build a general theory of what this information might mean. In the next step, the learner forms abstract concepts and generalizations based upon their hypothesis. Finally, the learner tests the implications of these concepts in new situations. After this step, the process once again cycles back to the first stage of the experiential process.

The learning styles described by Kolb are based upon two major dimensions: active/reflective and abstract/concrete.

The four learning styles that Kolb identified are:

• The Converger
  People with this learning style have dominant abilities in the areas of Abstract Conceptualization and Active Experimentation. They are highly skilled in the practical application of ideas. They tend to do best in situations where there is a single best solution or answer to a problem.


• The Diverger
  Divergers dominant abilities lie in the areas of Concrete Experience and Reflective Observation, essentially the opposite strengths of the Converger. People with this learning style are good at looking at the "big picture" and organizing smaller bits of information into a meaningful whole. Divergers tend to be emotional and creative and enjoy brainstorming to come up with new ideas. Artists, musicians, counselors, and people with a strong interest in the fine arts, humanities, and liberal arts tend to have this learning style.


• The Assimilator
  Assimilators are skilled in the areas of Abstract Conceptualization and Reflective Observation. Understanding and creating theoretical models is one of their greatest strengths. They tend to be more interested in abstract ideas rather than in people, but they are not greatly concerned with the practical applications of theories. Individuals who work in math and the basic sciences tend to have this type of learning style. Assimilators also enjoy work that involves planning and research.


• The Accommodator
  People with this learning style are strongest in Concrete Experience and Active Experimentation. This style is basically the opposite of the Assimilator style. Accommodators are doers; they enjoy performing experiments and carrying out plans in the real world. Out of all four learning styles, Accommodators tend to be the greatest risk-takers. They are good at thinking on their feet and changing their plans spontaneously in response to new information. When solving problems, they typically use a trial-and-error approach. People with this learning style often work in technical fields or in action-oriented jobs such as sales and marketing.

Similarity to Jungian Personality Theory

Kolb has suggested that his theory expands and builds upon Carl Jung's theory of personality, which is focused on how individuals prefer to interact and adapt to the world. Kolb's learning dimensions share a great deal in common with the dimensions found on the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI). The Jungian learning styles are also based upon the types identified on the MBTI.

The MBTI is a personality inventory based on Jung's work that looks at personality across four major dimensions. The Extraversion/Introversion dimension on the MBTI is very similar to Kolb's Active/Reflective dimension. People high on extraversion and active experimentation tend to be doers, while those high on introversion and reflective observation tend to be watchers. The Feeling/Thinking dimension on the MBTI is also very similar to Kolb's Concrete/Abstract dimension. Those high in the feeling and concrete experience areas tend to be more focused on the here-and-now, while those high in the areas of thinking and abstract conceptualization prefer to focus on theoretical concepts.

Support and Criticism for Kolb's Learning Styles

In one survey of students, Kolb and Goldman found that there was a correlation between student learning styles and their chosen departmental major. Students who planned to graduate in their selected major had learning styles that were strongly related to their areas of interest. For example, students entering management fields had a more accommodative style, while those pursuing mathematics degrees had a more assimilative approach. The results also indicated that students who were pursuing a degree aligned with their learning style had a greater commitment to their field than did students who were pursuing degrees not related to their learning preferences.

The concept of learning styles has been criticized by many and experts suggest that there is little evidence to support the existence of learning styles at all. One large scale study looked at more than 70 different learning style theories and concluded that each lacked enough valid research to support its claims. In a 2008 article, educator Mark K. Smith argued that Kolb's model is supported only by weak empirical evidence and that the learning process is actually far more complex than the theory suggests. He also noted that the theory fails to fully acknowledge how different experiences and cultures may impact the learning process.

References:

Coffield, F., Moseley, D., Hall, E., Ecclestone, K. (2004). Learning styles and pedagogy in post-16 learning: A systematic and critical review. London: Learning and Skills Research Centre.

Kolb, D. A. & Goldman, M. B. (1973). Toward a typology of learning styles and learning environments: An investigation of the impact of learning styles and discipline demands on the academic performance, social adaptation and career choices of MIT seniors. Cambridge, Mass.: Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Retrieved from http://archive.org/stream/towardtypologyof00kolb#page/n3/mode/2up

Kolb, D A. (1981). Learning styles and disciplinary differences. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, Inc.

Kolb, D.A. (1984). Experiential Learning: Experience as the source of learning and development. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall

Smith, M. K. (2001). David A. Kolb on experiential learning. Retrieved from http://www.infed.org/biblio/b-explrn.htm

VARK Learning Styles

Do students learn best when teaching methods match their learning style? Will they do better in school when activities are aligned to their learning strengths and preferences? Learning styles are a popular concept in psychology and education that are intended to identify how people learn best. The popularity of this concept grew dramatically during the 1970s and 1980s, despite the evidence suggesting that personal learning preferences have no actual influence on learning results.

While the existing research has found that matching teaching methods to learning styles had no influence on educational outcomes, the concept of learning styles remains extremely popular. There are many different ways of categorizing learning styles including Kolb's model and the Jungian learning styles. Neil Fleming's VARK model is one of the most popular representations. In 1987, Fleming developed an inventory designed to help students and others learn more about their individual learning preferences.

In Fleming's model, sometimes referred to VARK learning styles, learners are identified by whether they have a preference for visual learning (pictures, movies, diagrams), auditory learning (music, discussion, lectures), reading and writing (making lists, reading textbooks, taking notes), or kinesthetic learning (movement, experiments, hands-on activities).

Visual Learners

Visual learners learn best by seeing. Graphic displays such as charts, diagrams, illustrations, handouts, and videos are all helpful learning tools for visual learners. People who prefer this type of learning would rather see information presented in a visual rather than in written form.

If you think you might be a visual learner, answer the following questions:

Do you have to see information in order to remember it?
Do you pay close attention to body language?
Is art, beauty, and aesthetics important to you?
Does visualizing information in your mind help you remember it better?
If you can answer yes to most of these questions, chances are good that you have a visual learning style.

Aural Learners

Aural (or auditory) learners learn best by hearing information. They tend to get a great deal out of lectures and are good at remembering things they are told.

Are you an auditory learner? Consider the following questions:

Do you prefer to listen to class lectures rather than reading from the textbook?
Does reading out loud help you remember information better?
Would you prefer to listen to a recording of your class lectures or a podcast rather than going over your class notes?
Do you create songs to help remember information?
If you answered yes to most of these questions, then you are probably an auditory learner.

Reading and Writing Learners

Reading and writing learners prefer to take in information displayed as words. Learning materials that are primarily text-based are strongly preferred by these learners.

Could you be a reading and writing learner? Read through the following questions and think about whether they might apply to you.

Do you find reading your textbook to be a great way to learn new information?
Do you take a lot of notes during class and while reading your books?
Do you enjoy making lists, reading definitions, and creating PowerPoint presentations?
Do you prefer it when teachers make use of overheads and handouts?
If you answered yes to these questions, it is likely that you have a strong preference for the reading and writing style of learning.

Kinesthetic Learners

Kinesthetic (or tactile) learners learn best by touching and doing. Hands-on experience is important to kinesthetic learners.

Not sure if you're a kinesthetic learner? Answer these questions to find out:

Do you enjoy performing tasks that involve directly manipulating objects and materials?
Is it difficult for you to sit still for long periods of time?
Are you good at applied activities such as painting, cooking, mechanics, sports, and woodworking.
Do you have to actually practice doing something in order to learn it?
If you responded yes to these questions, then you are most likely a kinesthetic learner.

Is It Helpful to Know Your Learning Style?

The validity of the VARK model as well as other learning style theories has been questioned and criticized extensively. One large scale look at learning style models suggested that the instruments designed to assess individual learning styles were questionable, while other critics have suggested that labeling students as having one specific learning style can actually be a hindrance to learning.

Despite the criticism and lack of empirical support, the VARK model remains fairly popular among both students and educators. Many students immediately recognize that they are drawn to a particular learning style. Others may find that their learning preferences lie somewhere in the middle. For example, a student might feel that both visual and auditory learning is the most appealing.

While aligning teaching strategies to learning styles may or may not be effective, students might find that understanding their own learning preferences can be helpful. For example, if you know that visual learning appeals to you most, using visual study strategies in conjunction with other learning methods might help you better remember the information you are studying.

So what happens if no single learning preference calls out to you? What if you change preferences based on the situation or the type of information you are learning? In such instances, you probably have what is known as a multimodal style. For example, you might rely on your reading and writing preferences when you are dealing with a class that requires a great deal of book reading and note-taking, such as a history of psychology course. During an art class, you might depend more on your visual and kinesthetic preferences as you take in pictorial information and learn new techniques.

3 Reasons to Try New Learning Styles

When you know your preferred learning styles, you can capitalize the time you have available for learning and make it as efficient and enjoyable as possible.
"You can organize materials and structure situations to fit your best way of learning, fine-tune your timing to capture your hours of maximum receptivity, and choose learning experiences that match your tastes," writes Ron Gross in Peak Learning.

But flexing your learning muscles by trying new styles is important, too. Presented here with Ron's permission are three reasons to get outside your learning style comfort zone.

1. Some Subjects Strongly Demand a Certain Style
There are three advantages to experimenting with flexing your style. First, some subjects and situations strongly demand one or another style. When that happens. you are at a disadvantage if you can't switch into that mode and operate, if not at your maximum, at least effectively.
One example is academic courses, which generally require you to take a stringer approach.

Don't know if you're a grouper or a stringer? Take this learning style inventory: Are You a Grouper or a Stringer?

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2. An Alternative Approach May Surprise You
Second, you may discover that an alternative approach actually works surprisingly well. Perhaps you have never really given it a try only because some early experiences convinced you that you weren't successful with that approach.
All of us have neglected capacities of this kind. Finding yours can be a revelation and add a strong note to your intellectual repertoire. Thousands of people who "knew" they couldn't possibly draw or write — two powerful and gratifying ways of learning — have discovered that they can. Read Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain by Betty Edwards, and Writing the Natural Way by Gabriele Rico.


3. Your Ability to Communicate Will Improve
And third, practice with different learning styles will greatly improve your capacity to communicate with other people who operate in those styles.
Beyond applying it to your own learning needs, you may find your new awareness of learning styles especially useful with children, if you are a parent or a teacher, and in your career. In both of these areas, chronic problems can be solved through this approach.

Learning to Learn - A New Learning Style

If you haven't yet heard about Learning to Learn, you have now. It's an impressive learning system that "moves students from rote-memory to inquiry-based learning," developed by Marcia Heiman and Joshua Slomianko.
The book's subtitle is "Thinking Skills for the 21st Century." Heiman and Slomianko developed a course based on research from the U.S. Department of Labor and the American Society for Training and Development (ASTD) that showed the most important of all skills needed in a global economy is the ability to learn. Knowing how to learn enables a person to become competent in all other basic workplace skills.

Heiman and Slomianko worked closely with ASTD to create a version of LTL for corporate America, and the program now is being taught to students of all ages, including those already in the workplace. Students across the United States are learning how to learn, and they're not only having fantastic success in school, they have an edge in the workplace from the very start.

Students left behind to fail, dropouts struggling to earn a GED, adults who have never felt successful, all are finding they can learn. Teachers at all levels find students respond immediately to Learning to Learn (LTL). Here's one testimonial from LearningtoLearn.com:

"I've been using Learning to Learn for the last three months, and the difference in my students is amazing. First, they're learning so much more, and doing so much better in class. Before I started using LTL, if I were to legitimately grade my students, most of them would fail. Now they're able to answer complex questions on tests. I had to raise my standards, or they'd all get A's. With LTL, my students are active and involved, and they really get interested in what they're learning. It almost seems hard to remember now, but just three months ago, they were nodding off in class. I've been teaching for 29 years, and I've never seen anything like this. I leave school smiling at the end of the day. I'm having a wonderful time." — Robert Healey, Science Teacher, Boston, MA

You'll find more testimonials from both students and teachers on the LTL website. They're pretty surprising.

LTL is based on two major skills:

Generating questions from lecture notes and books;
Constructing visual organizers that answer a student's questions.
and four major thinking skills:
Ask questions of new material presented in lectures or books—thinking about which questions the material answers, and which it does not;
Break up large tasks and complex ideas into smaller parts;
Are goal-directed; direct their study to meet their instructor's objectives;
Take feedback, testing themselves informally to see how much they're learning.
Heiman says these are natural learning skills. They're skills we use every day without even thinking about it. When you drive a car, you are constantly assessing the situation surrounding you, asking yourself questions, making decisions about what you will do next. LTL teaches students to use these same skills in the classroom.

LTL in the Classroom

In the classroom, LTL involves concrete skills based on the four major thinking skills. Students learn to:
Question what they read in books or hear in lectures and make guesses about what it means, what comes next, how it might be tested. "You'll become a more active learner," Heiman writes, "bring to the table what you've learned elsewhere—not just waiting for a table of answers. And you'll predict your exam questions."

Break up material into smaller parts, allowing them to manage time better and keep from feeling overwhelmed by complex subjects. From Heiman: "Being goal-directed—directing your studying to meet your (and your instructors') objectives—will help you find important facts and ideas in your class notes and textbooks. Combined with the questioning methods, working through small learning tasks will help you test yourself—so that you can assess your learning progress before your instructors do."

Heiman encourages students by assuring them that although LTL seems like a collection of separate skills, once the skills are learned and applied in different combinations of methods, adapted to each students' needs, they will begin to see LTL as a "system of writing questions, breaking up complex tasks and ideas into smaller parts, setting learning goals, looking for feedback on your completion of these goals—and evaluating the process you went through."

In the next few weeks, we'll be writing more about LTL, and we're excited about bringing you an interview with Marcia Heiman. So stay tuned!

Learning Styles Inventory - Your Personal Intelligences

You have not one, but at least seven intelligences, and you can use most of them to enhance your learning. So says Ron Gross, a favorite contributing writer here at About Continuing Education. He's given permission to reprint this intelligence inventory from his book, Peak Learning: How to Create Your Own Lifelong Education Program for Personal Enlightenment and Professional Success:
Most people still believe that their capacity to learn is determined by intelligence. We all recall having our IQ taken at some point in our childhood, and most of us know the results. The IQ test was supposed to measure your capacity to learn, and therefore to predict your success in school. However, contemporary psychologists have debunked the whole idea of a single capacity called intelligence. Here you'll learn about seven intelligences we all have.

Each intelligence in this sense is a particular kind of learning talent that seems to come easily. One person may excel at the eye-hand coordination of sports, playing a musical instrument, or solving math problems; another might find it easy to empathize with other's needs, build a birdhouse, or learn a language. The precise combination of skills can arise from a combination of talent and environmental factors.

The best guide to your multiple intelligences is Frames of Mind by Harvard psychologist Howard Gardner. Gardner's seven intelligences are:

Linguistic
Logical-mathematical
Spatial
Musical
Bodily-kinesthetic
Intrapersonal (knowing yourself)
Interpersonal (knowing other people)
Most of us have a pretty good idea of which of these intelligences we've cultivated the most and in which we feel strong. As a reminder, however, here's a simple exercise that will pinpoint some of your strengths.

Which Are Your Strong Intelligences?

Circle the numbers of those descriptions that you feel apply to you:
You easily remember nice turns of phrase or memorable quotes and use them deftly in conversation.
You sense quickly when someone you are with is troubled about something.
You are fascinated by scientific and philosophical questions like "When did time begin?"
You can find your way around a new area or neighborhood very quickly.
You are regarded as quite graceful and rarely feel awkward in your movements.
You can sing on key.
You regularly read the science pages of your newspaper and look at magazines on science or technology.
You note other people's errors in using words or grammar, even if you don't correct them.
You often can figure out how something works or how to fix something that's broken, without asking for help.
You can readily imagine how other people play the roles they do in their work or families and imaginatively see yourself in their roles.
You can remember in detail the layout and landmarks of places you've visited on vacations.
You enjoy music and have favorite performers.
You like to draw.
You dance well.
You organize things in your kitchen, bathroom, and at your desk according to categories and in patterns.
You feel confident in interpreting what other people do in terms of what they are feeling.
You like to tell stories and are considered a good storyteller.
You sometimes enjoy different sounds in your environment.
When you meet new people, you often make connections between their characteristics and those of others acquaintances.
You feel you have a keen sense of what you can and can't do.
If all three of any of the following trios applies to you, you probably are strong in that intelligence, even if you haven't cultivated it.

Questions 1, 8, and 17: linguistic intelligence
Questions 6, 12, and 18: musical intelligence
Questions 3, 7, and 15: logical-mathematical intelligence
Questions 4, 11, and 13: spatial intelligence
Questions 5, 9, and 14: bodily-kinesthetic intelligence
Questions 10, 16, and 20: intrapersonal intelligence (knowing yourself)
Questions 2, 10, and 19: interpersonal intelligence (knowing others)

Using Your Intelligences

Whatever your strongest intelligences might be, by selecting among various methods you can assemble a repertoire of ways to learn that capitalize on them. By focusing your learning through your best areas you can make it easier, more rewarding, and more fun. You can build up skills without expecting too much from yourself by challenging yourself to learn something in an unfamiliar way, and by combining skills from as many intelligences as possible, you can learn in a way that is more complete and involving.
Suppose you have a strong spatial intelligence and you're setting out on a study of philosophy. How might you link your learning with your predilection for visual forms, shapes, and patterns?

First, you might seek out the facts of the philosophers by obtaining photos of them and their habitats. Find films and videos, such as Edward de Bono's series Great Thinkers, that feature mock interviews with historical philosophers, or contemporary videos of interviews with noted scholars.

You might also try to make diagrams about what you're learning, using varied colors for the aspects of each master's thoughts. The metaphor of vision as a symbol for insight and understanding will be of particular interest as you read, and you will come across some books that present philosophical ideas visually, such as Maps of the Mind, by Charles Hampden-Turner. You will certainly want to create some fresh visual images of your own that portray the philosophers, problems, principles, or systems you are studying. A diagram comparing Plato to Aristotle, for instance, would be wonderfully illuminating.

Are You a Grouper or a Stringer?

When learning something new, do you look for overall concepts and big ideas first? If you were learning a new style of cooking, for example, would you visit restaurants, talk to cooks, taste lots of new dishes, and then start experimenting?
Or do you prefer to start at the beginning and learn in a systematic way, taking courses in a logical sequence, according to a very specific plan?

Understanding how you learn best helps you choose the right learning methods and takes the frustration out of studying. From Peak Learning: How to Create Your Own Lifelong Education Program for Personal Enlightenment and Professional Success by Ron Gross, a favorite About Continuing Education contributor, we bring you an exercise developed by David Lewis and James Greene of the Mind Potential Study Group in London, printed with permission.

Are You a Grouper or a Stringer?

Check the phrase in each pair that corresponds more closely to your preferred approach to learning. There are no right or wrong ways to complete the statements; they're designed simply to distinguish your preferences.

When studying one unfamiliar subject, you:
a. prefer to gather information from diverse topic areas.
b. prefer to focus on one topic.
You would rather:
a. know a little about a great many subjects
b. become an expert on just one subject
When studying from a textbook, you:
a. skip ahead and read chapters of special interest out of sequence
b. work systematically from one chapter to the next, not moving on until you have understood earlier material
When asking people for information about some subject of interest, you:
a. tend to ask broad questions that call for rather general answers
b. tend to ask narrow questions that demand specific answers
When browsing in a library or bookstore, you:
a. roam around looking at books on many different subjects
b. stay more or less in one place, looking at books on just a couple of subjects
You are best at remembering:
a. general principles
b. specific facts
When performing some tasks, you:
a. like to have background information not strictly related to the work
b. prefer to concentrate only on strictly relevant information
You think that educators should:
a. give students exposure to a wide range of subjects in college
b. ensure that students mainly acquire in-depth knowledge related to their specialties
When on vacation, you would rather:
a. spend a short amount of time in several places
b. stay in one place the whole time and get to know it well
When learning something, you would rather:
a. follow general guidelines
b. work with a detailed plan of action

Do you agree that, in addition to specialized knowledge, a person should know some math, art, physics, literature, psychology, politics, languages, biology, history, and medicine? If you think people should study four or more of these subjects, score an "a" on this question.

Now total all of your a and b answers.

If you scored six or more a's on the test, you are a grouper. If you scored six or more b's, you're a stringer. If your a's and b's were close to equal, you find both approaches congenial and can choose the one that best fits the subject at hand.

The higher your total of either a's or b's, the more specialized your learning style is.

Four Quadrants of Learning

From Ron Gross's book Peak Learning: How to Create Your Own Lifelong Education Program for Personal Enlightenment and Professional Success comes this learning styles inventory designed to help you discover your preferences for dealing with facts or feelings, using logic or imagination, and thinking things through yourself or with other people--reprinted with permission.
The exercise is based on the pioneering work of Ned Herrmann and his Herrmann Brain Dominance Instrument (HBDI). You'll find more on Herrmann's work, including info on his Whole Brain Technology, assessments, products, and consulting at Herrmann International.

From Peak Learning:

Herrmann expressed his personal credo in a colorful book, The Creative Brain, in which he tells the story of how the idea of stylistic quadrants first came to him. It's a vivid example of how one's preferred ways of knowing can lead to fresh ideas. Herrmann had been intrigued by both Roger Sperry's work with two different brain-hemisphere styles and Paul MacLean's theory of the three-level brain.

Herrmann administered a homemade test to fellow workers to see whether he could correlate their preference in learning with the idea of brain-hemisphere dominance. The responses seemed to group themselves into four categories, not two as he'd anticipated. Then, while driving home from work one day, he combined his visual images of the two theories and had this experience:

"Eureka! There, suddenly, was the connecting link I had been searching for! ... The limbic system was also divided into two separated halves, and also endowed with a cortex capable of thinking, and also connected by a commissure—just like the cerebral hemispheres. Instead of there being two parts of the specialized brain, there were four—the number of clusters the data had been showing! ...

"So, what I had been calling left brain, would now become the left cerebral hemisphere. What was the right brain, now became the right cerebral hemisphere. What had been left center, would now be left limbic, and right center was now right limbic.

"The whole idea unfolded with such speed and intensity that it blotted out conscious awareness of everything else. I discovered after the image of this new model had taken form in my mind that my exit had gone by some time ago. The last 10 miles had been a total blank!"

Note how Herrmann's preference for visual ways of thinking led him to a spatial image, which sparked the new idea. Of course, he followed up on his insight by using his analytical and verbal skills to delineate how the quadrants might work. The moral, notes Herrmann, is that if we want to learn more creatively, "we need to learn to trust our non-verbal right brain, to follow our hunches, and to follow them up with careful, highly focused left-brain verification."

The Four Quadrants Exercise

Start by picking three learning areas. One might be your favorite school subject, the one you had the most fun with. Try to find another that was different—perhaps the subject you hated most. The third should be a subject you are currently starting to learn or one that you've had an intention to begin for some time.
Now read the following descriptions of four learners' styles and decide which one was (or would have been for the subject you hated) closest to your most comfortable way of learning the subject. Give that description the number 1. Give the one you like least a 3. Of the two styles remaining, decide which one might be slightly more enjoyable for you and number it 2. Do this for all three learning areas on your list.

Remember, there are no wrong answers here. All four styles are equally valid. Likewise, don't feel you have to be consistent. If one style seems better for one area, but not as comfortable for another, do not give it the same number in both cases.

Style A: The essence of any subject is a hard core of solid data. Learning is built up logically on a foundation of specific knowledge. Whether you're learning history, architecture, or accounting, you need a logical, rational approach to get your facts straight. If you focus on verifiable facts on which everyone can agree, you can come up with more precise and efficient theories to clarify the situation.

Style B: I thrive on order. I feel most comfortable when someone who really knows has laid out what's to be learned, in sequence. Then I can tackle the details, knowing that I'm going to cover the whole subject in the right order. Why flop around reinventing the wheel, when an expert has been through it all before? Whether it's a textbook, a computer program, or a workshop—what I want is a well-planned, precise curriculum to work my way through.

Style C: What is learning, anyway, except communication among people?! Even reading a book alone is interesting primarily because you're in touch with another person, the author. My own ideal way to learn is simply to talk with others interested in the same subject, learning how they feel, and coming to understand better what the subject means to them. When I was in school my favorite kind of class was a free-wheeling discussion, or going out for coffee afterward to discuss the lesson.

Style D: The underlying spirit of any subject is what's important to me. Once you grasp that, and really feel it with your whole being, learning becomes meaningful. That's obvious for fields like philosophy and art, but even in a field like business management, isn't the important thing the vision in people's minds? Are they simply pursuing profit or do they see profits as a way to make a contribution to society? Maybe they have a totally unexpected motive for what they do. When I study something, I want to stay open to turning the information upside down and looking at it in a brand-new way, rather than being spoon-fed specific techniques.

Your Peak Learning Time

Do you learn best first thing in the morning, as soon as you jump out of bed? Or is it easier for you to grasp new information in the evening as you unwind after a full day? Maybe 3 in the afternoon is your best time to learn? Don't know? Find out!
From Peak Learning: How to Create Your Own Lifelong Education Program for Personal Enlightenment and Professional Success by Ron Gross, a favorite About Continuing Education contributor, this learning style inventory will help you determine when you are most mentally alert.

Ron writes: "It is now firmly established that each of us is mentally alert and motivated at certain times during the day.... You obtain three benefits to knowing your own peak and valley times for learning and adjusting your learning efforts accordingly:

You will enjoy your learning more when you feel in the mood for it.
You will learn faster and more naturally because you will not be fighting resistance, fatigue, and discomfort.
You will make better use of your "low" times by doing things other than trying to learn.
Here's the test, presented with permission from Ron Gross:

Your Best and Worst of Times

The following questions will help you to sharpen your sense of what time of day you learn best. You may already be generally aware of your preferences, but these simple questions will help spur you on to act on them. The questions were developed by Professor Rita Dunn of St. John's University, Jamaica, New York. Answer true or false to each question.
I dislike getting up in the morning.
I dislike going to sleep at night.
I wish I could sleep all morning.
I stay awake for a long time after I get into bed.
I feel wide awake only after 10 in the morning.
If I stay up late at night, I get too sleepy to remember anything.
I usually feel a low after lunch.
When I have a task requiring concentration, I like to get up early in the morning to do it.
I'd rather do those tasks requiring concentration in the afternoon.
I usually start the tasks that require the most concentration after dinner.
I could stay up all night.
I wish I didn't have to go to work before noon.
I wish I could stay home during the day and go to work at night.
I like going to work in the morning.
I can remember things best when I concentrate on them:
in the morning
at lunchtime
in the afternoon
before dinner
after dinner
late at night
The test is self-scoring. Simply note if your answers to the questions point to a single time of day: morning, noon, afternoon, evening, or night. Ron writes, "Your answers should provide a map of how you prefer to spend your mental energy over the course of the day."

How to Use the Results

Ron has two suggestions for how to use your results in a way that gives your mind the opportunity to work at its optimum.
Seize your highs. Know when your mind is most likely to click into high gear, and arrange your schedule whenever possible so that you are free it use it undisturbed during that period.
Shut down before you run out of gas. Know when your mind is least likely to be ready for action, and plan ahead to do other useful or enjoyable activities at those times, such as socializing, routine work, or relaxing.
Suggestions from Ron

Here are some specific suggestions from Ron for making the most of your peak learning time.
Morning people: Starting the day with some fast, pleasant learning will give you a good feeling of having met some of your own needs before you move into your daily work. It will also give you grist for thinking during down times about what you learned that morning.
Evening people: Take a close look at your late afternoon and evening hours. How would you feel about targeting a specific piece of reading, thinking, problem solving, mental rehearsal, creating, or planning (all learning activities) for your commute home from work? If you know beforehand what you want to accomplish, you can have just what you need right at hand on the bus or train (or perhaps an audio program in your car.)
Night owls: Make the most of the late hours each day. Think of your learning as the personal reward you've earned by putting in your daily round of work.

Learning Styles

Auditory Learners

A Look at Auditory Learners:

Auditory learners learn best by listening and talking aloud. They typically notice and remember sounds. They are good at remembering things that they hear. They are also good with words and language. They often read to themselves as they study. They are also often distracted by noise and sounds.
Key Learning Methods for Auditory Learners:

Auditory learners learn best through hearing the information. They often need to read the written word aloud to help them remember key points. Verbal repetition is an effective means of study for auditory learners.
Ways to Adapt Lessons for Auditory Learners:

Provide students with oral along with written instructions for assignments. Include whole group discussion in your class. Provide students with videos to complement the written text. Allow time for students to read out loud or talk through problems they might be having. Provide breaks from silent reading periods. Also, realize that those who are strong in auditory learning typically take longer to read a passage.


Visual Learners


A Look at Visual Learners:

A typical visual learner uses visualization techniques to remember things. They often have a good sense of direction because they visualize maps and directions in their mind. Many prefer to read information in a textbook or on the whiteboard rather than listen to the teacher lecture. They also enjoy doodling and drawing. Visual learners typically use sight words in their everyday terminology. For example, they might say "Let's take a look at this." or "Let's look at this from a different perspective." They remember details including colors and spatial arrangements.
Key Learning Methods for Visual Learners:

Visual learners learn best by seeing what they are being taught. Visual learners typically prefer images, maps, graphs, and other visual representations over other forms of instruction. They will find that if they include images, mind maps, lists, and other visual techniques in their notes then they will have a better chance of remembering key information.

Ways to Adapt Lessons for Visual Learners:

Including diagrams, mind maps, word webs, visuals, and other forms of graphic organizers will help visual learners get the most from your instruction. Teach students to use highlighters when going through their notes and to create flashcards when studying for tests and learning information. Try not to give only oral instructions before requiring students to complete an assignment. Further, stay away from lecture without accompanying notes and/or visuals.


Kinesthetic Learners

A Look at Kinesthetic Learners:

Kinesthetic learners typically learn best by doing. They are naturally good at physical activities like sports and dance. They enjoy learning through hands-on methods. They typically like how-to guides and action-adventure stories. They might pace while on the phone or take breaks from studying to get up and move around. Some may seem fidgety, having a hard time sitting still in class.

Key Learning Methods:

Kinesthetic learners learn best through doing including manipulating items, simulations and role plays, and other methods for presenting subject matter that physically involve them in the learning process. They enjoy and learn well from experimenting and first hand experience. Further, they learn best when activities are varied during a class period.

Ways to Adapt Lessons:

Vary instruction not only from day-to-day but also within a single class period. Provide students with as many opportunities as your curriculum warrants to complete hands-on work. Allow students to role-play to gain further understanding of key concepts. Provide students with the opportunity to work in small discussion groups as they study materials. If possible, plan a field trip that can help reinforce key concepts. Allow students to stretch partially through the class if they seem to become restless.

How to Become a More Effective Learner

Are you interested in finding ways to learn new things faster? Do you want to become a more effective and efficient learner? If you are like many students, your time is limited so it is important to get the most educational value out of the time you have available.

Speed of learning is not the only important factor, however. Retention, recall, and transfer are also critical. Students need to be able to accurately remember the information they learn, recall it at a later time, and utilize it effectively in a wide variety of situations.

So what can you do to become a better learner? Becoming an effective and efficient student is not something that happens overnight, but putting a few of these tips into daily practice can help you get more out of your study time.

1. Memory Improvement Basics

We've talked before about some of the best ways to improve memory. Basic tips such as improving your focus, avoiding cram sessions, and structuring your study time are a good place to start, but there are even more lessons from psychology that can dramatically improve your learning efficiency.

2. Keep Learning (and Practicing) New Things

One sure-fire way to become a more effective learner is to simply keep learning. A 2004 Nature article reported that people who learned how to juggle increased the amount of gray matter in their occipital lobes, the area of the brain is associated with visual memory. When these individuals stopped practicing their new skill, this gray matter vanished.

So if you're learning a new language, it is important to keep practicing the language in order to maintain the gains you have achieved. This "use-it-or-lose-it" phenomenon involves a brain process known as "pruning." Certain pathways in the brain are maintained, while other are eliminated. If you want the new information you just learned to stay put, keep practicing and rehearsing it.

3. Learn in Multiple Ways

Focus on learning in more than one way. Instead of just listening to a podcast, which involves auditory learning, find a way to rehearse the information both verbally and visually. This might involve describing what you learned to a friend, taking notes, or drawing a mind map. By learning in more than one way, you’re further cementing the knowledge in your mind.

According to Judy Willis, “The more regions of the brain that store data about a subject, the more interconnection there is. This redundancy means students will have more opportunities to pull up all of those related bits of data from their multiple storage areas in response to a single cue. This cross-referencing of data means we have learned, rather than just memorized.”

4. Teach What You've Learned to Another Person

Educators have long noted that one of the best ways to learn something is to teach it to someone else. Remember your seventh-grade presentation on Costa Rica? By teaching to the rest of the class, your teacher hoped you would gain even more from the assignment. You can apply the same principle today by sharing your newly learned skills and knowledge with others.

Start by translating the information into your own words. This process alone helps solidify new knowledge in your brain. Next, find some way to share what you’ve learned. Some ideas include writing a blog post, creating a podcast, or participating in a group discussion.

5. Utilize Previous Learning to Promote New Learning

Another great way to become a more effective learner is to use relational learning, which involves relating new information to things that you already know. For example, if you are learning about Romeo and Juliet, you might associate what you learn about the play with prior knowledge you have about Shakespeare, the historical period in which the author lived, and other relevant information.

6. Gain Practical Experience

For many students, learning typically involves reading textbooks, attending lectures, or doing research in the library or on the Web. While seeing information and then writing it down is important, actually putting new knowledge and skills into practice can be one of the best ways to improve learning.

If you are trying to acquire a new skill or ability, focus on gaining practical experience. If it is a sport or athletic skill, perform the activity on a regular basis. If you are learning a new language, practice speaking with another person and surround yourself with language-immersion experiences. Watch foreign-language films and strike up conversations with native speakers to practice your budding skills.

7. Look Up Answers Rather Than Struggle to Remember

Of course, learning isn’t a perfect process. Sometimes, we forget the details of things that we have already learned. If you find yourself struggling to recall some tidbit of information, research suggests that you are better offer simply looking up the correct answer. One study found that the longer you spend trying to remember the answer, the more likely you will be to forget the answer again in the future. Why? Because these attempts to recall previously learned information actually results in learning the "error state" instead of the correct response.

8. Understand How You Learn Best

Another great strategy for improving your learning efficiency is to recognize your learning habits and styles. There are a number of different theories about learning styles, which can all help you gain a better understanding of how you learn best. The concept of learning styles has been the subject of considerable debate and criticism, but many students may find that understanding their study and learning preferences can still be helpful.

9. Use Testing to Boost Learning

While it may seem that spending more time studying is one of the best ways to maximize learning, research has demonstrated that taking tests actually helps you better remember what you've learned, even if it wasn't covered on the test. The study revealed that students who studied and were then tested had better long-term recall of the materials, even on information that was not covered by the tests. Students who had extra time to study but were not tested had significantly lower recall of the materials.

10. Stop Multitasking

For many years, it was thought that people who multitask, or perform more than one activity at once, had an edge over those who did not. However, research now suggests that multitasking can actually make learning less effective. In the study, participants lost significant amounts of time as they switched between multiple tasks and lost even more time as the tasks became increasingly complex. By switching from one activity to another, you will learn more slowly, become less efficient and make more errors.

How can you avoid the dangers of multitasking? Start by focusing your attention on the task at hand and continue working for a predetermined amount of time.

101 Ways to Learn English

Here are 101 things (in no particular order) you can do to improve your English:

Don’t be afraid to make mistakes. Be confident. People can only correct your mistakes when they hear you make them.

Surround yourself in English. Put yourself in an all English speaking environment where you can learn passively. The best way to learn is through speaking.

Practise every day. Make yourself a study plan. Decide how much time a week you are going to spend studying and stick to it. Establish a routine.

Tell your family and friends about your study plan. Get them to push you to study and also don’t let them interrupt you.

Practise the 4 core skills: reading, writing, speaking and listening. They all need to be worked on for you to improve.

Keep a notebook of new words you learn. Use them in sentences and try to say them at least 3 times when you speak.

Visit EC’s free learn English website at least once a day and complete a lesson.

Memorisation of lists is one of the most common ways of learning vocabulary for a test. It's only a good exercise for short term studying because you often do not retain the information that you have learned for a test.

Use your body clock. If you’re not a morning person, study in the afternoon.

You will find words easier to remember if you try to remember an example sentence using that word rather the word on its own.

Plan to take a test. You’ll find that you work harder when you need to study for something.

Saying that, it’s better not to study just to take a test. Think of the bigger picture. What can you do when you have a good command of English? How will the quality of your life improve?

Give yourself a long term goal. Focus on working towards it.

Give yourself short term goals too and reward yourself when you achieve each one.

Create an atmosphere in which you want to learn, not because you have to. You’ll learn more when you’re learning because you want to.

Know what works best for you. Think about what methods have been successful for you in the past and stick with them.

Figure out how you learn. It can be by memorising, reading, speaking, summarising or other methods. Find out how you study best. It can be in a quiet place by yourself or with a group.

Get help! If you don’t understand something you’ve got to ask someone. Ask your teacher, classmates or friends for help.

Review! Review! Review! Make sure that you take the time to review things you have studied in the past.

It’s not a good idea to study on your own for more than 30 minutes at a time. Take regular breaks, get some fresh air and stretch your legs.

Don’t be in such a hurry to move up a level. Concentrate on the level you are at now.

Watch DVDs rather than TV. It’s better to use something that you can watch over again to catch information you might have missed the first time.

Watching TV only gives you the chance to hear something correctly first time. This is better for high level students. It can be great practice for speaking to native English speakers so you don’t have to ask them to repeat themselves!

Read graded readers. These books are especially written for your level. Read a whole novel. You can do it! You’ll feel great afterwards.

Children’s books have easier words and are a good alternative to graded readers.

Newspapers are a good place to find passive constructs. Read through an article and see if you can find the passive sentences.

Read for the general meaning first. Don’t worry about understanding every word, then go back and look up new words.

For a word you don’t understand in a sentence, look at the other words around it. They will give you a hint. Try to guess the meaning from the context.

Learn root words. They’ll help you guess the meaning of words. For example: scrib = write, min = small
When you learn a new word, think of all its other forms: Beautiful (adjective), beauty (noun), beautifully (adverb).

Learn prefixes (dis-, un-, re-) and suffixes (-ly, -ment, -ful), these will help you to figure out the meaning of words and build your vocabulary.

English, unlike Japanese or French, uses word stress. For new words, count the syllables and find where the stress is. Only one stress per word and always on a vowel. Two syllable verbs have a stress on the second syllable (beGIN). 2 syllable nouns (TEAcher) and adjectives (HAPpy) stress the first.

Use English whenever you can. It’s as simple as that!

Don’t translate into English from your own language. Think in English to improve your fluency. Talk to yourself…but not on the bus otherwise people will think you have gone crazy!

You can’t learn English from a book. Like driving a car, you can only learn through doing it.
The most natural way to learn grammar is through talking.

Keep an English diary or journal. Start by writing a few sentences a day and then get into the habit of writing more.

Why not start an online blog and share your writings with the world?

To become a better writer brainstorm as many ideas and thoughts onto paper without worrying about grammar or spelling. Then think about the structure. After that, write your piece using good grammar and spelling. Finally, read it through or give it to someone else to check for mistakes.

Keep an eye on your punctuation as it can totally change what you’re trying to say. Check out the difference in meaning between these two sentences: “A woman without her man is nothing” and “A woman: without her, man is nothing”.

Sing your heart out! Show the world your beautiful voice! Learn English songs and sing along with them to improve fluency and intonation… anyone for Karaoke?

Get a penfriend or use chat-rooms, forums and community sites. If you can’t speak to someone in English, this is the next best thing.

Shadow English CDs. Listen to a few sentences then repeat what you heard. Focus on the rhythm and intonation.

Have English radio on in your house. Even if you are not actively listening to it, you will still be training your ears.

Mirror CDs. Read out loud along with a CD. Again, this is great for intonation, pronunciation and rhythm.
Dictation. Listen to a CD or friend and write down what you hear.

Nobody likes to hear their own voice, but be brave and try it! Record your voice and listen to your pronunciation and intonation. It will help you to identify your problem areas.

Ask your helpful teacher if you can record his lesson. This is a great way to review. You can also listen to your teachers speaking speed and intonation.

Use an English/English dictionary as it will help you to keep thinking in English and not translating.

If an English/English dictionary seems scary, there are learner’s dictionaries for English students of your level.

Don’t become too reliant on your dictionary. Your dictionary should be an aid, not your main teacher. Try to guess the meaning of words rather than going straight for your dictionary.

Don’t give up! Stay positive! Sometimes you will feel that you aren’t learning quickly enough. Everyone feels like this, don’t worry about it. You’ll get there in the end.

Enjoy it! We learn more when we are having fun!

If you get nervous when speaking, take two deep breaths before you say something. You’ll speak better when you feel relaxed.

Keep yourself motivated by looking back at the textbooks and CDs you used in the past. You’ll be surprised at how easy they seem to you now! Congratulations, your level is improving!

You are never too young or too old to start learning English. Don’t make excuses not to learn. What are you waiting for?

Procrastination can stop you from being successful. To stop procrastinating, it's important you understand if your procrastinating is to avoid studying, or if it is your bad habit.

If you haven’t gotten the results you wanted yet, it’s not because you’re bad at languages, it’s because you haven’t found your own special way of learning yet.

Use resources which match your level. Don’t use texts/listening exercises which are too difficult or too easy. Use materials which challenge you but don’t frustrate you.

Don’t worry about making your accent perfect. It’s an important part of your cultural identity to keep your accent. Native English speakers enjoy hearing English spoken with an accent.

There are many types of English: British, American, South African and so on. None of these are wrong or not as important. English is English.

Instead, be aware of the differences in American and British English and use your words accordingly. For example: Elevator (US) / Lift (British).

Carry cue cards with you. These are small cards which you can write new words on. You can pull them out and look at them whenever you a free minute.

Use post-it notes and stick them around your home. You can use them to label things. Stick one on your pet dog!

You can’t ignore phrasal verbs (two words verbs), there are hundreds of them in English and they’re widely used. The more you focus on their meaning, the more you’ll be able to guess the meaning of new ones. You’ll start to recognise their patterns.

Use your intuition. Go with your gut feeling, you’ll be surprised how often your first guess is the right guess. Like we said before, be confident.

Gather your thoughts. Take a second to think about what you’re going to say. You know the grammar, but maybe you don’t use it correctly when you speak.

Meet new people. Make the effort to mix with English speakers in your town. You could join a club or go to bars where foreigners hang out. Buy one a drink, they love that!

Be the person to start conversations in English. Try to keep the conversations moving and use listening words (‘really?’ / ‘go on…’/ ‘what happened then?’) Don’t wait for others to speak to you. Get in there!
Debate. Discuss topics in a group. Each person should choose a viewpoint (even if you don’t agree with it) and debate it within the group. Make sure you get your point across. Learn to listen actively. Active listening will help in the classroom and it will help you get more out of, and contribute more to, group study sessions. Focus on the person who is talking. Don’t fidget or become distracted by other people or events.

Concentrate on the speaker with your ears and eyes. Follow the movements the speaker makes in an effort to hear more. It may help to repeat what you hear others say in an effort to understand their thoughts.

It’s not enough to only learn English words. You can teach a parrot English words but that doesn’t mean it can speak English! You still need to have an understanding of grammar.

Verb tenses are used by English speakers to talk about the timing of actions. You might not have the same expressions in your own language. It’s important that you know these tenses and when to use them.
English has many irregular verbs. You should drill yourself on them.

Keep it up! If you take a break from speaking English, you will find that your level decreases and all your hard work has been wasted.

Don’t be put off by a bad test score. Sometimes students have the ability to pass an English test, but can’t communicate well with English speakers. If you can speak freely in English, you should be proud of yourself.
Remember that as long as you have tried your hardest, you have succeeded!

Learn English with a friend. You’ll have someone you can practise with and you can motivate each other to study.

Remember, the way we write English is not the same as how it’s pronounced. For example ‘Ough’ has over 6 pronunciations. Familiarise yourself the Phonetic Alphabet. It will help you correctly pronounce words in the dictionary.

Get used to the ‘schwa’ sound [ə] - an unstressed and toneless neutral vowel sound. ‘Schwa’ is the most common vowel sound in English. For example, the 'a' in about and the 'u' in supply.

Keep in mind that it takes longer to improve when our level is high. Usually the fastest progress is made when we are beginners. Don’t think that you’re suddenly not learning anymore, it’s just a less noticeable progress.

Make sure that your English matches the occasion. It’s OK to use slang with friends but not in a business meeting. Decide in which situation it’s appropriate to use the words and phrases you have learned.
Textbook English is often different from the way we casually speak. To learn casual ‘slang’ watch movies.
Idioms can be difficult to memorise, but they are great fun to use and they’ll make your English more colourful.

When talking we usually link words together so that two words can sound like one. Simply put, we link words ending with a consonant sound to words beginning with a vowel sound (consonant > vowel). We link words ending with a vowel sound to words beginning with a vowel sound (vowel > vowel). Practise these to improve your listening and pronunciation.

Make use of the internet. It’s full of resources to help you learn: BBC Learning English ; learnenglish.ecenglish.com

Think about your strong and weak points. Write down which areas you want to improve on and work on improving them. Of course, don’t ignore your strong points. Congratulate yourself on how well you’ve done!

Unlearn your mistakes. You probably make the same grammar mistakes over and over again. Use English tests results as a study tool. Go over your mistakes and choose one or two that you want to focus on. Use your favourite grammar book to check rules.

Use the correct article (a/an, the). Be aware that there is more to this rule than a/an= non specific, the=specific. For example: A university (not an university because it begins with a consonant sound). An hour (not a hour because the ‘h’ is often silent).

For fluency, try image training. Before you go to that restaurant think through what the waiter is likely to say to you. Think of what phrases you are going to use.

Much communication comes through body language and gesture. These can be different between cultures and countries. For example, the two-fingered "V" for victory symbol is fine palms-out. If you make it with you palm facing toward you, you'll offend a British person. It means…well, you ask a British person and find out for yourself!

The easiest one - Sleep! You’ll learn more after a good night’s sleep. You’ll be able to concentrate more.

Take an English course in an English speaking country.

If you studying abroad, mix with people from other countries not only people from your own country. It’s not a good idea for you to live in a shared house with people from your own country. Enjoy a more cultural experience by spending time with other nationalities.

Have you thought about getting a job or doing an internship abroad?

Get yourself a qualified teacher. Who wants to learn wrong things?

Nobody can learn all of the English language. No need to worry about trying. A useful shortcut to learning is that in English we have lots of words that have the same pronunciation, but a different spelling and meaning. For example, ‘come here’ has the same pronunciation as, ‘I can hear the birds’. You might find it easier to build vocabulary by knowing the different meanings.

Once you have a basic level of English explore the different ways you can say the same thing. This makes your English more interesting to the listener and it shouldn’t be too difficult for you because you already know the basics. For example, how many ways can we say, ‘Goodbye' in English?

When you are on your English course, be prepared for your class. Do your homework as soon as possible and hand it in on time. Review your notes and your last lesson a few minutes before the class. Doing this will refresh your memory and you'll be warmed up for lesson.

Don't get distracted in class. Focus on the lesson, don't stare out of the window. Don't be late, arrive a few minutes before the start of the lesson. Don't sit next to people who won't speak to you in English. Switch off your phone. Be organised, remember to take your textbook, notebook and pen.

Find a comfortable, peaceful place for quiet study. You need somewhere where you can focus 100%.

Last but not least, Learn English with EC!

A boost for new ways to learn

Harvard University Provost Alan Garber announced today the appointment of historian and humanities scholar Peter K. Bol as vice provost for advances in learning. Bol, the Charles H. Carswell Professor of East Asian Languages and Civilizations, will oversee the University’s longstanding and expanding efforts to support faculty experimentation in novel pedagogies, research on learning sciences, and the use of technologies and tools to enhance teaching and learning on campus and online.

“With the creation of the Harvard Initiative for Learning and Teaching (HILT) in October 2011 and the launch of edX and HarvardX in May 2012, it has become clear that the University’s work in these areas have reached a level that warrants dedicated academic leadership,” said Garber. “Peter’s stellar teaching, experience with technology, and broad understanding of Harvard’s culture and community make him the ideal choice to ensure that our efforts in advancing learning, both on campus and online, are well-coordinated, strategic, and effective. He will be a staunch ally for the faculty, always listening and learning as we pursue both innovation and excellence in our teaching.”

Bol’s appointment comes at a critical and exciting time for Harvard and higher education. As President Drew Faust remarked in her opening-year address, this is an era when “new understandings of human behavior and the brain, along with advances in technology, have opened the door to remarkable new possibilities for teaching and learning, both face-to-face and online.”

An expert on the history of China’s cultural elites at the national and local levels from the seventh to the 17th centuries, Bol has long been a pioneer in considering and actualizing such technological and pedagogical experimentation. He has served as the chairman of the Harvard Academic Computing Committee, led the University-wide effort to integrate geospatial analysis in teaching and research, and developed one of the initial HarvardX online courses, SW12x, “China” (a course being offered concurrently at the College and at the Extension School).

In his new role, Bol will report directly to the provost and oversee both HarvardX and HILT. Working with faculty and deans from across the University, his broader charge is to guide and develop Harvard’s strategies for advancing pedagogy and enhancing the residential educational experience.

“Peter balances the ineffable magic of teaching with the power of technology,” said Michael D. Smith, dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences. “His innovative teaching enriches our College courses. He has an amazing ability to help students gain a deeper historical perspective by tapping into Harvard’s unique museum and library collections, as well as our new digital resources. Deftly and dynamically, Peter elevates knowledge without ever overwhelming students.”

Bol expects to further conversations about innovations in teaching and learning and their implications for Harvard and the world. The constantly changing technical landscape in higher education — from social media to Web-based tools to learning management systems — and the desire of Harvard faculty to enhance the student experience present tremendous opportunities for exploration and experimentation.

“Peter’s new role will help us all advance the University’s priority to be a leader in teaching and learning,” said Erin Driver-Linn, associate provost for institutional research and director of HILT. “HILT’s activities have catalyzed innovation and excellence in learning and teaching, and fostered a growing community of pioneering faculty, staff, students, and researchers at Harvard. Peter’s ability to connect across scholarly and organizational boundaries will help us take these activities to another level of integration and dynamic possibilities.”

In particular, educational researchers such as Andrew Ho, associate professor of education and research chair of HarvardX, are eager to gain insights into how students learn online and to discover ways to improve student learning in residential settings. The wealth of new data generated from online learning efforts allows faculty to evaluate curricula, grading, and feedback strategies, as well as interventions to improve course completion rates.

“I couldn’t be more thrilled with Peter’s appointment,” said Robert Lue, professor of the practice of molecular and cellular biology, faculty director of HarvardX, and Richard L. Menschel Faculty Director of the Derek Bok Center for Teaching and Learning. “He will bring things together in a profound way. While scholarly research has long enjoyed shared facilities and tools and close communities of best practice, until now, teaching at Harvard has not formally been supported in such an integrated way. A flexible and networked infrastructure for learning led by Peter will be a powerful means for faculty to put even the wildest ideas to the test.”

Through recent, University-wide endeavors such as HILT and HarvardX, Bol plans to work with the Schools to develop policies and best practices and foster closer collaboration with the Harvard Library, the museums, the Division of Continuing Education, and Harvard University Information Technology, as well as teaching and learning hubs such as the Bok Center. He used the University’s extensive collection of Chinese artifacts, for example, to help bring his online and campus course on Chinese history to life.

“It is an honor to further the work of Erin Driver-Linn and HILT, Rob Lue and HarvardX, and Andrew Ho’s research group,” said Bol. “The HILT program has shown us how much learning and teaching matter to all of us across the University. HarvardX has given us an opportunity to develop new methods of engaging students at Harvard in learning and sharing knowledge with the world. We look forward to the research that will help us understand the implications these efforts at Harvard and elsewhere hold for the future of education.”

9 amazing ways to learn online

There is no need to buy a massive set of encyclopedias anymore, as you can learn most things online these days. The trouble is that the internet is filled with terrible amounts of misinformation. So, if you are learning online, you are going to have to find a way of avoiding the 99% of lies and find the 1% of truth. You may do that by looking into trusted resources such as the ones listed below.

TED

This is a place where industry experts come and give a speech or a lecture about their specialty. The lectures apply to almost any academic specialty, although it is better known for its business lectures. It is run by a non-profit organization, and its speakers, students not only from high ranking universities,  and topics have made very good college essays in the past. You can find them on TED.com or video websites such as Daily Motion and YouTube.

University Lectures

Many universities now offer some kind of distance learning schemes, but there are also groups that have been set up to spread knowledge for free. There are non-profit groups that universities such as MIT and Berkeley work with in order to give away free video lectures. The lectures are given by institutions with the best universities rankings in the country. Websites such as openculture.com have libraries of free university courses. There are even phone apps that are dedicated to being a library resource for these lectures.

YouTube

This social media network is becoming more and more noisy as it fills with more spam videos and more unskippable advertising, but it does still has its uses, such as the educational programs that it features. The great thing is that you may find educational programs that are not part of an academic course. For example, there are tutorials on how to use the Blender program, where finding tutorials on this elsewhere is near impossible. Do not forget that YouTube is a public access online platform, which means it is going to have its fair share of false information, so keep an eye out and check out their sources before committing!

Wibit.net

This is a website set up by two nerds who give lessons on how to program. They use screen capture technology and their own voices to show you how to write program code. They go from the very basics, including on where to download the software you need to start programming. They go right back from programming in C, up to the most recent programming codes. They even have tutorials on how to make your own Smartphone apps. Other great options, like CodeAcademy.com or Bloc.io, are also available to budding web developers!

Free Books Online

If you have an e-reader, then try a few free book sites before you start buying books. There are a lot of free book directories that allow you to save money by legally downloading books for free. There are a few good free ones, but try e-booksdirectory.com and Gutenberg.org to start with.

BBC Learning

The British Broadcasting Corporation features a wide variety of learning resources, with most of them being based on some sort of video format. You may find their educational resources at bbc.co.uk/learning/. You will find educational resources for both younger and older people. It is good because it has resources for adult learners, teachers, children, and even for parents to help them teach their children.

The Discovery Channel

They have an online resource where they give away some of their content for free at dsc.discovery.com. Remember that this is not a non-profit organization, so they are going to charge you for some things, but do have some free resources on their website. Some may say the same for the History Channel website, but in this writer’s opinion, the History Channel can have shaky content. They often have a confirmation bias, and their reporters have trouble with the “absence of evidence” problem (because the content they produce as a result means that they can talk about the effects of ghosts and aliens without any empirical evidence). Always make sure you take into account the hard facts when learning online!

The Rosetta Project

This is available at rosettaproject.org as is an archive and learning center that helps people learn a new language. It is a global collaboration that has set out to teach people a different language for free. It has 1000 languages in archive that helps people learn a new tongue in a community setting.

Google Scholar

This is a tool that you may find at scholar.google.co.uk, and it does have a big library of academic essays that you may read. Its downfall is that it is so hard to find the pieces that you want. Maybe there is a knack to it and it takes some getting used to, but quite often, you will find relevant pieces by accident rather than by design. Still, it offers free academic content so it is hard to complain when most other websites will charge you to look at academic essays. And, the tool will sometimes help you to site a piece of work too.

Top Tips to Make Your Mobile Learning Engaging

The key challenges in the design of any mobile learning content - here we’ll look at top tips to make mobile learning engaging for your audience.

Mobile learning (mLearning) is learning content consumed on any mobile device, primarily tablets and smartphones. mLearning is becoming increasingly popular and, despite what many people may assume, learning content for mobile devices cannot always be simply a smaller version of a course designed for the desktop environment.


How content needs to be designed will depend largely on the screen space available. If both tablets and smartphones are being targeted, then designing with the smaller screen size in mind will make your content more usable for your learners.


When creating mobile learning, many of the key considerations for designing all learning will apply:

You’ll need to know your audience – who the learners are, and what motivates them.
You’ll need to have a clear idea of what they need to learn – what the learning objectives are, and what the skill/knowledge gap is that you’re aiming to fill.
You’ll need to know the usage scenarios – how they are likely to use the learning, which device types they may be using and whether it's secheduled learning activities, just-in-time learning, refresher activities etc. or maybe a combination.
Your design and content choices will be heavily affected by the answers to these.


There are other considerations, however, that are particularly relevant for designing for mobile devices. Here we’ll look at our top tips to make mobile learning engaging for your audience – the key challenge in the design of any mLearning content.



6 Top Tips To Make mLearning Engaging For Your Audience


Small chunks

Nobody wants to be scrolling through endless pages on their mobile device. Keep the page length short.

Smartphone users are unlikely to want to spend long at a time working their way through your content, so make the learning nuggets short and to the point, enabling learners to complete them quickly, and easily consume what’s useful to them. Users can of course complete multiple modules in one sitting if they choose to.


Variety

Like all learning, mLearning courses need to be well designed, interesting, engaging, and relevant to the learner. Mobile devices offer the learner many competing distractions, so maintaining the learner’s focus is one of the biggest challenges when designing any mLearning.

A variety of interaction types used at various points in the content can help with this, although smartphones may well limit the interaction types depending on the system architecture and screen size. For example, audio, video, quizzes, text or images could be made to work well on a smartphone. On a tablet, interactions such as drag and drop exercises, interactive text, or flip tiles could add to the user’s involvement.

Limit the amount of text input from the learner or simply avoid it altogether. The keyboard on a mobile device typically reduces the screen space available, and is laborious for inputting text.


Keep it to a minimum

To engage the learner, content should be useful, relevant and presented in a way that motivates them to learn the material.

As always, learners will want to be able to find relevant information both quickly and easily. However on a mobile device, this perceived need to access “what you want, when you want it” is further heightened than when using a desktop computer.

Ensure that only key content is included, as on a smaller screen any supporting text can soon be seen as superfluous. Instead consider suitable images or graphics that can replace text, helping to make information more consumable on a small mobile device.

Remember, there is considerably more to maximising the available screen real-estate than simply cramming content into the far corners.


Emotional engagement

You can improve engagement with your content by engendering emotional involvement with your mLearning content. Try to make it personal to the learner in some way, this way they’ll feel more of a commitment to completing the module. For example, gamification elements such as achieving an award for each module, or mLearning through gaming, could add to the emotional involvement that your learners feel for the training. Or using contexts, characters and scenarios which your learner will identify with will help draw them in and sustain interest. It may sound strange for a piece of learning, but sometimes a little dramatic tension can transform a scenario based piece of learning into something learners will be genuinely interested in completing!


Make use of the operating system

Think about making use of the device’s operating system and features for the devices you’re designing for. Can you make good use of the camera, microphone, GPS or any other features? If so, these should be carefully designed in the training, not simply gimmicks to use just because they are there. For example, could your learning be genuinely improved by varying what is shown dependent on the learner’s GPS location, or is that an unnecessary complication?


Social networking

Can you incorporate a social aspect into your course? The millennial generation are used to social networking, sharing, and collaborative learning. Would it be appropriate to make good use of any of these in your training? Perhaps allow learners to compete against each other or work through the content with their friends? Again, these would need to be well thought out, not included simply because it is possible.


Summary

There are many different ways in which to make mLearning engaging. By keeping these in mind when designing your mLearning content, you can help to provide a stimulating learner experience.

The ones we’ve touched on here are:

Dividing content into small, manageable chunks
Using a variety of interaction types
Keeping content to a minimum
Engaging learners on an emotional level
Taking advantage of features of the operating system
Including social networking aspects