Using learners styles and differences to help students learn more and better

1. Using learners styles and differences to
help students learn more and better
Bruna Caltabiano
Livraria Martins Fontes
July 26, 2014.
São Paulo, Brazil

2. Challenge
o Mr. Brown has 6 black
gloves and 10 brown gloves
in his closet. He blindly picks
up some gloves
from the closet.
o What is the minimum
number of gloves Mr. Brown
will have to pick to be certain
to find a pair of gloves of the

3. HINTS
If you pick 2 gloves blindly, can they be of
different colors?
If you pick 3 gloves blindly, can they be of
different colors?

4. Are they intelligent?

5. What is intelligence?

6. "If something exists, it exists in some
amount.
If it exists in some amount, then it is
capable of being measured.“
- René Descartes
(Principles of Philosophy, 1644)

7. Alfred
Binet
1905
Revised in 1908, 1911 and
1916
Stanford-Binet
Wechsler WAIS WISC
1955
Timeline

8. Current Wechsler (WAIS–IV, WISC–IV,
WPPSI–IV) IQ classification
IQ Range ("deviation IQ") IQ Classification
130 and above Very Superior
120–129 Superior
110–119 High Average
90–109 Average
80–89 Low Average
70–79 Borderline
69 and below Extremely Low

9. Multiple Intelligence Theory (MI)
First articulated by Howard Gardner, in
1983.
"It's not how smart you are that matters, what
really counts is how you are smart.“

10. The different intelligences

11. Lack of evidence?
 1994 – Sternberg
 2000 – Allix
 2004 – Sternberg and Grigerenko
2004 - Gardner asserted that he would be
"delighted were such evidence to accrue“

12. North America: some
schools have looked to
structure curricula
according to the
intelligences.
Positive response
applied by teachers to
the problems of
schooling.
Seven kinds of intelligence would
allow seven ways to teach, rather
than one.
Educational Use
(Gardner, 1993)

13. “.. the theory validates educators’ everyday
experience: students think and learn in
many different ways. It also provides
educators with a conceptual framework for
organizing and reflecting on curriculum
assessment and pedagogical practices. In
turn, this reflection has led many educators
to develop new approaches that might
better meet the needs of the range of
learners in their classrooms.”
(Kornhaber, 2003)

15. Different Styles

16. Teaching the child in:
his/her best modality
the content’s best modality
(Willingham, 2005)

17. _So why, if it isn’t
based on any real
evidence, does the
theory feel so right?
(Williams, 2014)
_Well, it feels intuitively
right.

18. (The Blind Side – 2009)

19. .
You can’t really take all
these individual
differences into account.
The important thing is to
teach the class
I teach very little to the class as
a whole – but my class has lots
of individual tasks and small
group work. I think the
classroom is always a set of
private lessons – as many as
there are individuals.
You can adapt class
lessons to I respond
to many individual
needs and differences
within the group.
(Scrivener, 2005)

20. The own character of a class
≠
The sum of individuals in it

21. Managing Differences
1. Gathering useful feedback from learners
Questionnaire for learners: Individual
Learners Preferences
(Scrivener, 2005)

22. Students’ (unedited)
comments
(Harmer, 2007)
“I didn’t like this
kind of music. I
prefer different
kind fo music.”
“It is difficult to express your feeling even in
my mother language, but finally I could
written down something.”
“I think that music is an excellent way to
learn. But I think it will be more interesting
if we work with the lyrics of songs”
“I liked this lesson.
Because it was funny...”
“I liked this subject
because everyone
could find a
connection part of
them. After we
listened a part of
music we could
descrive what we
think.. “
“I love to learn
about music”

23. 2. Using your intuition
3. Vary activities within a unit
“It is essential that we try
to ensure that different learners
styles are catered for as often as
possible.”
(Harmer,
2007)

24. “The important thing to
remember here is that although the ideas
behind learning styles theories (and other
‘pseudo-science’) aren’t based on any
real evidence, it doesn’t mean that we
shouldn’t vary the way we teach in order
to keep our students motivated. Very
often students may just need one more
example put in a different way in order to
reach that ‘Eureka!’ moment, regardless
of their preferred way of learning.”(Williams, 2014)

25. 3 sections in 3 different places
Checking anwers (pairs and groups)
Reacting to a video
Writing after listening
Deciding on the correct sequence
Filling in the blanks
Listening to sounds
Completing a chart or diagram
Listening

26. Besides English, I also studied French and Spanish
I have two dogs and one cat.
I was born in the countryside of São Paulo
New York City is my favorite city in the world.
I love watching drama movies.
Warm-up: The truth about me
(Puchta & Rinvolucri, 2005)
When I was at school, I used to prefer Physics to Arts.

27. Speaking: A logical-mathematical look at a work of art
(Adapted from Puchta & Rinvolucri, 2005)
Yayoi Kusama

28. Reading – Sequence in a story
(Adapted from Puchta & Rinvolucri, 2005)

29. Writing
A correspondence with
oneself
Puchta & Rinvolucri,
2005.

30. Writing - The story of your hopes and
dreams
(Adapted from Puchta & Rinvolucri, 2005)

31. “If teachers can be guided to recognize
students’ unique strengths and
weaknesses through attention to MI, and
can follow with appropriately geared
activities, they will certainly enrich their
language courses and
will possibly enable students to better
accomplish their purposes.”
(Brown, 2007)
1. Provide students with different activities
2. Understand and deal with student’s frustration.
3. Understand and deal with your own frustration.

32. Are they intelligent?

33. BIBLIOGRAPHY
BOOKS
• Brown, Douglas. Teaching by Principles: An
interactive Approach to Language Pedagogy.
New York: Pearson Education, 2007.
• Gardner, Howard. Multiple Intelligences: The
Theory of Multiple Intelligences. New York:
Basic Books, 1993.

34. BIBLIOGRAPHY
• Harmer, Jeremy. The Practice of English Language
Teaching. Essex: Pearson Education Limited,
2007.
• Puchta, Herbert; Rinvolucri, Mario. Multiple
Intelligences in EFL. Padova: Helbling Languages,
2005.
• Richards, Jack; Renandya, Willy. Methodology in
Language Teaching. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2002.
• Scrivener, Jim. Learning Teaching. Oxford:
Macmillan Education, 2005.

35. WEBSITES
http://psychology.about.com/od/psychologicaltesting/a/in
t-history.htm
http://www.newscientist.com/data/doc/article/dn19554/i
nstant_expert_13_-_intelligence.pdf
http://www.aft.org/newspubs/periodicals/ae/summer200
5/willingham.cfm
http://www.richmondshare.com.br/revisiting-elt-mantras-
4-visual-learners-need-to-see-things-kinaesthetic-
learners-need-to-do-things/
http://infed.org/mobi/howard-gardner-multiple-
intelligences-and-education/

36. bruna@caltabianoidiomas.com.br
caltabiano.idiomas
@caltabianoidio1
www.caltabianoidiomas.com.br