Applying VARK learning styles to improve student engagement and comprehension

Listening Skills

Why is listening with all your Senses is important

There are various means and ways through which learners acquire knowledge and the acquisition of knowledge depends much on the methods or the learning styles that the learners are subjected to or trained through. VARK which is an acronym for Visual, Auditory, Read/write, Kinesthetic, as a learning style is one of the mostly used in institutions that learners are taken through or used to ensure that the learners imbibe the concepts that are being taught to them. It is the combination of all these modes of learning that make up the listening with all the sense in an academic environment as will be discussed below from by Matt Baker (2011).

The Auditory group is assumed to learn best by hearing the source of the learning. This group ca generally be at an advantage in lectures and talks but could fare poorly in handling assignments since there is a wide scale of reading that is involved in that yet they are used to auditory engagement. In such situations, the teachers can help this lot by encouraging assignments that are based on discussions such that they can verbalize the key issues and internalize them better.

The Visuals part assumes that the learner best gets the concepts being taught to them through sight or seeing. This group therefore benefits most and in a more comfortable manner when the teacher writes the points on the board as compared to if the teacher just speaks out the points loudly, they will also be noted to like writing quite a lot during the class session (Carol Kanar, 1990). The teacher will therefore strive to involve visual things within his lessons like the study charts as well as diagrams. In the contemporary classroom setting, the teacher can also use PowerPoint presentation to aid such learners that are assumed to be under this category as well as ensuring that the class or the learning environment has a lot of visual learning aids.

Those learners that are characterized under the Read-write learners are seen to be enjoying the highest advantage as these are the predominant modes that are used in the daily class settings especially at the higher grades of an individual's learning. This category of learners will always strive to take down notes during lectures so as to be able to read them later on.

The Kinesthetic kind of learners are those who learn best by doing the things that they learn as well as using to the maximum possible their senses of touch. This is a method that is applied especially at the lower grades with younger learners. The teachers at these grades are therefore encouraged to involve hands on activities in all the learning endeavors of the learners is they are to get anything at all, the students can be encouraged to move around, get up all the time and even touch things here and there with an aim to learn (Carol Kanar, 1990).

Benefits of effective listening / listening with all your Senses

It makes it easier for a person to listen to the other party and make a consideration of his or her views if he or she knows that he is being listened to and considered too. For instance in the academic setting, active listening that engages all the senses will allow the listener to comprehend all that the instructor is saying and imbibe them for future application and remembrance.

It also helps people see or identify their mistake in their reasoning when they hear it played back without criticism.

It helps bring proper understanding in the sense that areas of proper agreement are identified and areas of disagreement are put in perspective and done away with instead of being magnified, these achieved by the keen listener who uses all his senses to listen.

Pausing to reflect what each other say is important because it gives chance to become aware of the different levels that are going on below the surface hence helps to bring things into the open when they can be readily be solved.

A person can easily be helped to see the flaw in his or her position if only there is accurate understanding of that person's view which can only be achieved through effective listening.

A person can also be more effective in discovering the flaw in his own position if he listens accurately and understand the other's view.

The above measures and processes will definitely make a person an effective listener and can be used by any individual student to become an effective listener who listens with al the senses hence an ideal person when it comes to imbibing information in a class or seminar setting.