In a study published in 2012, 242 teachers in England and the Netherlands filled in an online survey about the brain. One statement read: "Individuals learn better when they receive information in their preferred learning style (e.g., auditory, visual, kinesthetic)." In England, 93 percent of the teachers agreed. In the Netherlands, 96 percent did.
The statement is one of the best-known myths in education. People do have preferences, and it's fine to enjoy podcasts more than textbooks. But when researchers test whether teaching people in their preferred style helps them learn more, they find no good evidence that it does. What helps is choosing the method that fits what you are learning. You learn to understand spoken Italian by listening and to spell it by writing, whatever your "type".
Where the survey came from
The survey was part of a study in Frontiers in Psychology by Dekker and colleagues at VU University Amsterdam. Teachers saw 32 statements about the brain and learning; 15 of them were known myths. On average, the teachers believed about half of the myths. The learning-styles statement was among the most widely believed, together with two others about left-brain and right-brain learning.
The teachers in this study were interested in brain science, which makes the result more striking. The authors found that knowing more about the brain in general did not protect teachers from these myths. Learning styles sound scientific, and they feel true, because everyone knows what they like.
The test that learning styles fail
In 2008, four psychologists, Pashler, McDaniel, Rohrer and Bjork, were given the task of checking whether learning styles are supported by evidence. Their review in Psychological Science in the Public Interest first described what a fair test would look like:
- Sort learners by their style, for example "visual" and "auditory".
- Randomly give some learners in each group visual teaching and others auditory teaching.
- Give everyone the same final test.
If learning styles matter, the visual learners should do best with visual teaching, and the auditory learners should do best with auditory teaching. Both halves must be true. If one method is simply better for everyone, that says something about the method, not about styles.
Pashler and his colleagues found that very few studies had used this design. Among those that had, they found "virtually no evidence" for the expected pattern, and several results contradicted it. Their conclusion: there is no adequate basis for using learning-style tests in teaching. They added an honest caveat. Many versions of the idea have never been tested properly, so not every possible form has been ruled out.
The audiobook test
A later study tested the version most relevant to language learners: listening versus reading. In 2015, Rogowsky, Calhoun and Tallal published the results in the Journal of Educational Psychology. They measured the learning-style preference of college-educated adults, auditory or visual, with a standard questionnaire. Then they gave each person the same material from a nonfiction book, either as a digital audiobook or as an e-text, chosen at random.
Comprehension was tested right away and again two weeks later. The self-described auditory learners did not understand more from the audiobook. The visual learners did not understand more from the text. The preference simply did not predict which format worked better for that person.
Why the idea feels right
The review by Pashler's team found plenty of evidence that people have preferences, and that people differ in specific abilities. Both are real. The mistake is the step from "I prefer this" to "I learn better this way".
Liking a method can still matter for another reason: a format you enjoy may be one you return to more often. Just don't let a label decide what you skip.
What this means for language learners
A language arrives in more than one form. You hear it, read it, say it and write it, and each of these is its own skill. That makes the choice of method much simpler than a style test:
- Choose by skill, not by type. To understand speech, listen. To speak, speak. To spell and use the right endings, write.
- Skip the quiz. No "what kind of learner am I" result tells you anything a language doesn't already ask of you.
- Use your favourite format for extra hours. If you love podcasts, listen more. Then still read and write a little every day.
- Meet each new word in several forms. Hear it, say it, type it. Each one is a form you will need later.
- Notice what you avoid. If you never write because you "aren't a writing person", that is often the skill that needs the time.
Qlango lessons don't sort you into a type. Each lesson gives you short example sentences and asks you to work with them in several ways. There are flashcards, choices between answers, matching pairs, scrambled words to put in order, dictation, and translations you type yourself. An AI voice reads every example aloud, and you can slow it down. For more on balancing listening with other practice, see our guide to learning a language by watching TV.
The teachers in that survey were not careless. They believed something that sounds right and that their training had often repeated. You don't need to find your type before you start. You need a plan that covers all four skills, like the one in our guide to learning a language on your own, and a first lesson today.
Frequently asked questions
Are learning styles real?
People really do have preferences, such as liking pictures more than text. But there is no good evidence that teaching people in their preferred style makes them learn more. A major 2008 review found "virtually no evidence" for that idea, and later experiments, such as a 2015 audiobook-versus-text study, found the same.
What type of learner am I?
You can certainly know what you enjoy, but research does not support sorting learners into visual, auditory or kinesthetic types for teaching. For a language, the better question is which skill you want to build, because listening, speaking, reading and writing each need their own practice.
What are the VARK learning styles?
VARK stands for visual, aural, read/write and kinesthetic. It is one of many learning-style questionnaires. The research problem is the same as for other style models: there is no adequate evidence that matching teaching to the questionnaire result improves learning.
What is the best way to learn a language as a visual learner?
The same way as anyone else: listen to understand speech, speak to learn speaking, read and write to learn the written language. If you like visual material, use it for extra practice, such as subtitles or picture flashcards, but don't drop listening because of a label.
