The World of Multi-sensory Learning: New Ideas Enliven an "Old" Method
Picture an elementary school class following a museum guide through a dazzling set of exhibits. Walking along, they pause before new sights, perhaps read the signs on the walls, laughing and pointing. If an exhibit truly strikes their fancy, they may rush giddily to dig carefully in a sandbox for "dinosaur fossils" or to operate a model crane. The children's visit becomes a lasting impression. The combination of listening, looking, and moving around connects the children to the many new things they have discovered.
Trips to a museum may not seem like the cutting-edge of educational policy, but in fact they function very much like the educational approach known as multi-sensory learning. Multi-sensory learning makes use of the way our senses—sight, hearing and touch foremost—build one upon another during the learning process. Using more than one sense generates a fuller and more memorable way to experience an idea or concept. By offering children more than one avenue for experiencing something new, multi-sensory learning recreates the way children prefer to learn—naturally, with all their senses engaged.
Multi-sensory learning is also highly effective in creating the type of immersive experience and environment which has proven so crucial to language learning.
All children can learn Spanish—or any other language!
Language's power comes in part from the fact that it is not merely words—and even less just the words on a page. Language is communication in its most expansive sense, the core of our relations and interactions with one another. Language is alive! Whether you're learning your first or your fifth language, the process of acquisition is supported most strongly by experience language consistently and in a variety of ways, employing different parts of your brain and your body.
Scientific experts on language and the brain have recently looked more deeply into the manner in which our senses filter and even alter the information which is passed to the brain in various and surprising ways. Many projects have focused particularly on the preferences people display for one sense over another, particularly in an educational or learning environment. Building off this research, educators have taken to referring to these preferences as "learning styles." Although there are a number of ways to classify these styles or preferences, three main ones stand out: visual, auditory, and kinaesthetic/tactile.
Visual learners get the most out of learning when new information is presented to them in chart or diagram form—anything they can absorb with their eyes. Your child may be a visual learner if she enjoys playing with vibrantly-coloured picture books or with flash cards. Auditory learners, on the other hand, enjoy learning best when they can act in a verbal exchange with new information—by hearing it and responding out loud. Auditory learners often pick up on verbal directions quickly and at a young age, and love to rhyme or sing to remember stories or new words. Kinaesthetic learners prefer to take in new information when they can find a way to get their hands on what they're learning—they would rather act out a new idea than merely hear about it or see it. If you have a kinesthetic learner, you may find your child pulling your mobile apart to figure out how it works, or building wooden block skyscrapers of impressive height.
"Making senses" out of learning language
Although many children have one learning style they may prefer, their preference is rarely very exclusive. Instead, most children—and most people—find learning most memorable and most captivating when they are able to have a multi-layered experience. Additionally, we often find that learning styles, and the senses that go along with them, overlap in most cases. Think of how well sight and sound go together in a movie!
Multi-sensory education takes advantage of the opportunities working with more than one sense and more than one learning style affords. Because it teaches to learners in their learning style rather than the instructor's, multi-sensory education brings all students together to share the same learning experience or activity. The ability to reach nearly every pupil pleasurably and effectively creates brilliant new possibilities for education, particularly with the spread of new multimedia technologies.
One of these possibilities lies in the ability to teach children for whom traditional educational approaches have proven ineffective. Multi-sensory learning establishes a wider field of learning opportunities, enabling these pupils to remain in general classrooms. All children can learn to read—or to speak another language—if they are taught in a manner that plays to their strengths and individual talents.
Multi-sensory learning—for more than just the classroom
There is great potential in multi-sensory learning for your child in your own home as well. New research and experiments continues to support the evidence that early exposure to a second language is highly beneficial to your child. Multi-sensory can be particularly useful in bringing your child this exposure and securing the present and future benefits of learning a second language. Video, audio and interactive features can get your children moving, singing and dancing along to a new language—each activity enriching the overall experience greatly.
Programs which make good use of the power of multi-sensory learning give your children the same wonderful experience as a magical trip through a museum—in this case, a museum of language, a lively emporium which immerses your child in a captivating new world which will last in her memory and continue to work its wonders.
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