Learning Styles and Strategies

Studienarbeit aus dem Jahr 2011 im Fachbereich Englisch - Pädagogik, Didaktik, Sprachwissenschaft, Note: 1,5, Pädagogische Hochschule Heidelberg, Sprache: Deutsch, Abstract: Inclusion, a highly charged issue in today‘s school policy debates. However, this topic is not only important concerning students having a migration background or disabilities, but also in terms of different learning styles and strategies a learner brings to class. The previous belief in a homogeneous learning group has to be reconsidered, due to the fact that each child has its own talents and abilities. An inclusive school does not mean that all students are treated equally. It is much more important to take the learners‘ distinctive features into account and to give students the opportunity to improve their skills by discovering their own learning style and strategies. Especially in terms of foreign language acquisition, it is crucial for teachers to know about the learners‘ different learning styles, so that they are able to offer them alternative ways of learning and therefore, adapting the learning process itself. To aim this goal, teachers have to be researchers and specialists in terms of learning styles as well as learning strategies. Firstly, this paper aims to give insights into two different views of the concept ‘learning styles‘. Furthermore, two possibilities of raising consciousness about these styles will be shown. Due to the dependence between style preferences and strategy use the six different learning strategies are discussed in detail before some textbooks are analysed regarding their explicit use and awareness - raising of language learning strategies.