TKT Reflection: Unit 13 - Learner Characteristics

UNIT 13

LEARNER CHARACTERISTICS

In this chapter I understood that a learner’s motivation, learning style, learning strategies, maturity and even past experiences, which are learner characteristics, influences on how they learn a language. So, it is important to identify the learning style each learner has to know and understand how they like to learn and how they want best. To this there are nine different learning which are visual, auditory, kinaesthetic, group, individual, reflective, impulsive, analytic, and autonomous. However it is important to know that learners may fit into more than two learning styles.

Better still, we need to be aware of the suitable learning strategy, to use it correctly and in the right time, so that they become autonomous learners. To this, we can suggest our students to start some strategies, such as repeating words until they can remember them, asking for feedback, to use the target language as much as possible, to write each new vocabulary they learn to memorize, paraphrasing, and what is more to never be afraid of taking risks. It is essential since learners need to become responsible for their own progress.

As a result, maturity in students means to growth in all aspect, either physical, mentally and emotional, which are different in each stage. As for example, children need to be active all the time since they have a short attention span but teenagers have a longer concentration time and can keep still. On the other hand adults can have a longer period of concentration since they are more conscious and have a higher cognitive skill.

To sum up, as teachers we need to train them to become independent and build their confidence by focusing on form and let them mingle, walking around to speak, to learn from his or her classmates.