According to PBS Parents, most students are able to use all four learning modalities – seeing, hearing, moving, and touching – but some learners are stronger in one or two of these modalities than they are in the others. Therefore, strong teachers will write lessons that activate more than one modality in order to create learning experiences that not only strengthen their students’ learning faculties, but also access their minds in a more synergetic way than direct (lecture-based) instruction does. This is because synergetic teaching enables students to use multiple mental faculties in relationship to the subject they are learning. These teachers will also differentiate their instructional methods because some students might understand one or two instructional methods better than others.
I think that creating synergetic lessons and differentiating instruction are core aspects of TESOL. Implementing these pedagogical methods makes it possible for all learners to have more equitable footing in the classroom. From a TESOL perspective, your curriculum must consider your students’ different linguistic backgrounds as well as their different personal and academic backgrounds, belief systems, and learning styles and abilities.
Therefore, as I am going into the new school year, I am starting to think about who my students are in order to teach them more effectively. Something that I do know is that my students’ linguistic backgrounds vary greatly. Some of my students are monolingual in English, but have some level of training in Korean. Other students may be considered bilingual, having learned Korean and English at the same time. Still, other students may be trilingual on some level, having learned English and Spanish simultaneously, but with some training in Korean, too. All of these students will bring a variety of strengths and opportunities for growth into the classroom beyond their individual personal, cultural, and epistemological differences.
There is no one-size-fits-all way of teaching, and one may argue that making my teaching equitable will be an ongoing process of learning about my students and approaching my class with a willingness to adapt my curriculum and pedagogical methods as the year goes on. As I start this new school year, I am setting my end-of-the-year goals and creating my curricular “road map” to getting there – but I am keeping in mind that I need to be self-reflexive throughout the entire process as a teacher and as a learner. I need to continue learning about my students as the year goes on and be willing to modify the program I’ve created in order to be sure I am best meeting both the objectives and my students’ needs.
If you’d like to know about how MAT@USC can help prepare students to earn their TEFL certification contact our Admissions office at 888.MAT.1USC or email us at matadmit@usc.edu.
http://www.education.com/reference/article/learning-modalities/
