Individuals have pathways that are specific to them, when information enters those pathways the information is retaining in short-term memory. Repeated exposure and use, promote retention in long-term memory. (“What Makes Perceptual Styles a Different Way of Learning. ” n. d) According to VARK questionnaire, I am a multimodal learner, who learns with two or more ways of learning, in my case I learn with (ARK) aural, means by listening, reading/writing, and kinesthetic, means using my other senses like manipulating and experimenting.
Even though I learn, in so many different ways, my preferred style is to read and write and I use the other strategies as the additional support for my enhanced learning experience, which sounds very true because I like to read books and do some research before I attend class. I take notes in points, record the lecture on the recorder so I can hear it again. In addition, I learn by discussing with people about my topics and assignment to get better understanding of it. I also learn with experiments like trying out a recipe to be able to remember and make changes accordingly.
Having a detailed insight of my own learning styles and strategies that I have built upon since my childhood is a helpful tool in using my time and energy effectively. In comparing my preferred learning strategies and identified learning strategies I would say that, there are some similarities and some differences, for example in aural, similarity is that, there is a suggestion to use recorder which I already use but the difference is that, I have always recorded teachers lectures and never recorded my self.
The Dissertation on The Effect of Using Kwl (Know, Want, Learned) Strategy on Efl Students’ Reading Comprehension Achievement
Non-equivalent groups pretest-posttest design was used in this study. The population was the eightth grade students of SMPN 4 Palembang in academic year of 2009/2010 with a total number of 326 students. Out of this population, 40 students were taken as sample. There were two groups, each of which consisted of 20 students. The data were collected by using multiple choice reading comprehension test. ...
In read/ write style of learning the strategies that I use are reading the books and journals and write the notes in points and the suggested strategies are to write in multiple choice questions and essays to prepare for the exam and also rewrite in different words again and again to get the maximum understanding of the topic. Lastly, in my kinesthetic way of learning, I used trial and error and experiments to learn better and the suggested strategies state the same.
In addition, I should relate the topics with real life examples and case studies to grasp the concept even deeper. By taking this questionnaire, I have recognized and understood my learning styles and strategies even better and I learned new strategies within my learning styles that I was unaware of before taking this questionnaire. In my aural learning style, I learned that I can even record my self talking about the topic and listen to it again later, saying the answers out loud will also help when I am trying to recall my voices.
Also learned that by pretending to talk to my examiner or instructor will give me deeper insight of the topic. Using the quiet places for studying will be beneficial to be able to recall the voices in my head about the topic. In my read/write learning style, I learned that making headings in the notes and writing the definition of words in my own words would help a great deal in understanding of the material. Writing the notes in the form of multiple choice questions and essays and rewriting the essays in different words will be helpful too.
