The relationship between student learning styles and performance on ESL tasks

Abstract

Understanding the ways in which students learn is important to good teaching. However, students' learning styles are rarely, if ever, considered in a systematic fashion in the English language classroom. The purpose of this research is to determine the learning style profile of college of education (Kokstad Region) students and also to compare their learning style profile with their performance on selected ESL tasks. The results indicated that the ESL college learners in the Eastern Cape (Kokstad Region) displayed a variety of learning styles along a continuum. The results also indicated that students performed differently on a variety of ESL tasks. This manifested itself in the good performance students have on some exercises and poor performances on other exercises. This indicated that students performed well if the task at hand favoured their learning styles. In most cases the relationships were statistically as well as practically significant. It is, therefore, essential that the ESL/EFL lecturer organises a variety of activities in order to cater for the diversity of learning styles employed by his/her students. It is also recommended that lecturers should help their students identify their preferred learning styles and stretch those styles by examining and practising various learning styles.