Proceedings of The 6th International Conference on New Approaches in Education
Year: 2023
DOI: https://www.doi.org/10.33422/6th.icnaeducation.2023.04.001
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Learning Styles of Young Learners in the Learning Process of a Foreign Language
Dr. Dorela Kaçauni
ABSTRACT:
The importance of learning styles in the learning process of a foreign language is reflected in many observations of educationalists for the need to adapt any teaching material in a way that addresses learners’ learning styles. Teachers in early childhood education must understand the diversity of learning styles in the classroom environment. Since each child is likely to have a different learning style, young learners need a variety of activities to be engaged in the entire class. Understanding how they learn will make it easier for teachers to create appropriate lesson plans for the educational programs. Although different learning styles might develop as young learners get older, they will generally learn in one of three ways: visual, auditory and kinesthetic. The purpose of this study is to identify the preferred perceptual learning styles of young learners. To accomplish this aim, a questionnaire with 30 sentences (10 sentence per one learning style) was delivered to 370 young learners in the public school “Sotir Gurra” in Korça, Albania during the academic year 2022-2023 from the first grade up to the fifth grade. Their foreign language is English and French. Young learners had to choose the frequency of the actions from 1-3. The analysis of the data revealed that the preferred students’ style is the visual learning style, being selected by 153 students. 118 students resulted to prefer the auditory learning style. The less favourite style is the kinaesthetic learning style, being chosen by 99 students.
keywords: learning style, young learners, a foreign language, visual style, auditory style, kinesthetic style