2 questions are asked here to this small EFL community:

1) What is your learning style score? https://www.webtools.ncsu.edu/learningstyles/
2)  Have you almost intuitively started to use more and more visual materials in your lessons? Why?

As you might know, I have been doing some research into teaching like EFL teachers do in Korea, but most crucially, without any grammar teaching. After having compared data from two schools and several cohorts (N=260) the results do reiterate previous research findings since the 60s:

• There is no significant difference between groups with grammar and without grammar teaching
• Students in the experimental group enjoy English much more (attitudinal component)
• Students in the experimental group make more grammar errors in their first 2 years of middle school but write better CAE texts in high school. (communicative component)

First community question:
What are your views on grammar teaching and would/could you consider minimising it in your classes?

Second question:

Learning styles research
Preliminary findings show that 100% of my student population prefers Visual learning, while most of our ESL class material is presented in a very Verbal (linguistic) way. We ask them to analyse sentences, word order and spelling but all the while most of our students might be thinking in images when we say the word 'TREE'.

Reasons for this are:
Right brained/ global brained thinkers (language centres are positioned on the left hemisphere)
Top-Down (holistic inductive thinkers) (They prefer to get a whole concept instead of step-by-step instructions)
Most language teachers are left-brained, deductive thinkers, approaching language from easy sentences to difficult ones, and presenting lessons in small bite-sized prescripted building blocks.

It is my assumption that ESL classes improve language skills more effectively, allowing for a voracious appetite (or: rage to master) for learning in our brightest students, because ESL teachers do not hold back and speak English in complete sentences without translating anything, effectively making use of the learning style preferences of Right/Global brained learners.

If you are interested in finding out whether my hunch is correct you can assess your own Learning style here: https://www.webtools.ncsu.edu/learningstyles/
It would be really kind of you if you could screenshot your results here or simply copy paste the scores   for each domain like this example:   Active: 3 Intuitive: 9 Visual: 11 Global: 6

Reflective: 7 Sensing: 1 Visual: 1 Sequential: 1

 

Yeah, I know what you mean, but I hope you can try again, I would love seeing your results nonetheless.

True, it is only referred to in the context of highly gifted learners who have many more connections between both hemispheres (global). To them writing an essay might become a 6000 word garbled expose on tiny details, whereas analytical teachers try to force them to think deductively (left) resulting in underachievement and over 60% failing to get a degree.

In the Learning Styles Inv.  that difference is referred to as SEQUENTIAL vs, Global.

There is, I refer to brain research done, but I am more interested in your learning style prefs tbh.