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The Art of Effective Instruction [5:45m]: Play Now | Download

The mission of PrepMasters and these podcasts is to create effective instructors. Are you an effective instructor? Does your expertise translate into student learning?

The art of effective instruction produces great instructors. A great instructor is someone who can turn their expertise into learning that makes a difference in their students’ lives. Below is an article with more information on Teaching to Individual Learning Styles.

Teaching to Individual Learning Styles (a 5-part series)
Part 2: Auditory Learners

Welcome to Part 2 of a five-part series of articles on Teaching to Individual Learning Styles. Part 2 is all about catering to auditory learners. This article discusses what auditory learners are, and then gives you some tips on adapting your teaching style to make it easy for them to learn.

What is an auditory learner?

Auditory learners are students who learn best by hearing things. Any kind of related sounds, noises, music, and other verbal clues will help them understand a topic better. Any time they can actually “hear” about a topic, instead of just seeing it, they’ll better understand what you’re trying to teach them.

In other words, they might not understand a topic if you just have them read a paragraph about it silently. But if you read aloud to them, of if you let them read it out loud themselves, they’ll understand it better.

Auditory learners do have some strengths. For instance, they can usually remember spoken facts much better than visual and kinesthetic learners do. They also have better listening comprehension than those two groups. Unfortunately, however, many classrooms discourage discussions, conversations, reading aloud, and any other noisy activities. Auditory learners have difficulty learning in those “quiet” classes. Auditory learners may still be able to understand topics that you present without auditory clues. They’ll usually understand things better or more quickly, though, if you let them hear an explanation. So when you’re teaching, make sure you include a verbal explanation of everything, even if you think that your auditory learners are “getting it.”

Every learning style is important. Make sure you teach to ALL of the learning styles, not just one or two of them. Even if there are only a few auditory learners in the class, you wouldn’t want to leave them behind, would you? Of course you wouldn’t. Think of how you would feel if you were an auditory learner and you couldn’t understand the material because the teacher only taught the lesson by having you read silently. It wouldn’t be fair!

How do you know if a student is an auditory learner? Watch them a little.

• Do they talk a lot?
• Do they move their lips when they read silently?
• Are they “noisy?”
• Do they have a large vocabulary?
• Do they speak articulately?
• Do they hum or whistle in class sometimes?
• Do they seem to have a strong appreciation of music?

If so, they might be an auditory learner.

Auditory learning is a common learning style. That means that if you don’t cover every topic verbally or with sound somehow, then at least one student in your class may miss out on what you’re trying to teach them.

So here are some ways to cater to auditory learners:

1. Verbally explain all slides, examples, drawings, charts, graphs, photos, and demonstrations.
2. Verbally review anything the students were supposed to read on their own.
3. Hold class discussions about any material the students read.
4. Play some instrumental background music when appropriate.
5. Orally explain how to solve any math problems.
6. Let the students read aloud alone or in groups.
7. And finally, remember that auditory learners understand instructions better when they hear them. So read written instructions for assignments and written test questions aloud.

In other words, encourage sound in the classroom. That’s it. It’s a simple strategy. But even though it’s simple, it will make lessons easier and more rewarding for the auditory learners in your class.

Please join us for Part 3 Kinesthetic Learners in the series Teaching to Individual Learning Styles in our next article.