Language Learning Theories

 What are the implications of Learning Theories for classroom teachers?

1.  An understanding of learning theories helps teachers connect to all different kinds of
students. Teachers can focus on different learning styles to reach different students, creating
teaching that focuses directly on student needs and aptitudes.

2. The implication of these learning theories can help to develop the process of learning for the
learner. For example, in preparing  learning materials, teachers should include activities for the
different learning styles, so that learners can select appropriate activities based on their
preferred style.

3. The theory can be used to teach positive behaviors to students. Teachers can use positive
role models to increase desired behaviors and thus change the culture of a school.

4.  Theories provide a basis to understand how people learn and a way to explain, describe,
analyze and predict learning. In that sense, a theory helps us make more informed decisions
around the design, development and delivery of learning.

5.  Theory assists researchers and teachers to critically reflect on education policy and
classroom practice in attempting to ensure best education practice. Theory assists researchers
with a clearer understanding of a research problem.

6.  The theories provide information about the relationships among strategies, context, and
learner characteristics for better integration, and, most importantly, learning theories allow for
reliable prediction of the effectiveness of the selected instructional strategies.

7.  The theories explain the processes that people engage in as they make sense of
information, and how they integrate that information into their mental models so that it becomes
new knowledge. Learning theories also examine what motivates people to learn, and what
circumstances enable or hinder learning.

8.  Learning theory describes how students receive, process, and retain knowledge during
learning. Cognitive, emotional, and environmental influences, as well as prior experience, all
play a part in how understanding, or a world view, is acquired or changed and knowledge and
skills retained.

9.  Learning theories are critical because they “help us to understand both how knowledge is
created and how people learn” Harasim (2017)

10.  A fundamental component in professional education is the link between theory and practice.
However, students in professional education programs experience a lack of coherence between
theory and practice which is often described as theory practice gap.