Students Pursuing Mastery Goals vs Those Pursuing Performance Goals

There is a hypothesis that students pursuing mastery goals favor instructors who stimulate and challenge them intellectually, whereas those pursuing performance goals favor instructors who present material clearly and provide clear cues about how to succeed. Senko, Belmonte and Yakhkind (2012) tested this hypothesis and found that students’ achievement goals corresponded to their views about the most essential instructor qualities. Mastery goals predicted greater demand for professors who intellectually challenged students and possessed topic expertise, whereas performance goals predicted high demand for professors who presented material clearly and provided cues about how to succeed in the course.

Traditional vs Learning-Style Instructional Methods

The first research that reported the effectiveness of the multisensory Instructional Packages (MIP) as compared with traditional instruction methods in a study was done by Farkas (2003) who examined the effects of teaching through traditional versus learning-style instructional methods on students' achievement. The researcher suggested that students, who received lessons with multisensory instructional methods, evidenced greater achievement gains than did students who received the same content via a traditional approach.

Peer checking as part of feedback

One method that I learned and used to apply when I was teaching in Bangkok and Abu Dhabi is peer checking. Peer checking is part of feedback that should take place before the teacher checks individual learners’ work. This method lets students have the opportunity to learn from each other, cooperate in one activity, urge them to brainstorm and exchange ideas to solve problem. It also relieves the teacher dominance in the classroom and helps students feel more active and independent. However, the teacher still has a big role during peer checking which is monitoring. The teacher should observe what learners do and help them when possible. Then eventually the teacher can give a whole-class feedback so that all of learners know the best answers. This way the instructions would take three directions: first, from the teacher to the students, this is when he gives them the questions and the instructions. Second, from a student to another, while peer checking. Third, from the students to the teacher when they give him the answers. There could also be a fourth direction from the teacher to all students if he/she corrects or modifies students’ answers. Peer checking increases the number of directions between the teacher and the students and among learners themselves; thus it boosts classroom interaction and communication. 

Matching instructors' teaching styles with students' learning styles

One approach that has been highly considered by teachers, administrators and researchers is matching instructors’ teaching styles with student’s learning styles. Charkins, O'Toole, and Wetzel (1985) studied approximately six hundred students and twenty teachers at Purdue University in the spring of 1982 in order to investigate link between teaching styles and learning styles and, if so, to determine the effect of that link on student learning on one hand and how it also affects learners’ attitude from the other. In their study, they suggested several major conclusions concerning course outputs and the divergence between learning style and teaching style. The larger the divergence between teaching style and learning style, the lower the student's gain in achievement. They also postulated that that the greater the divergence between teaching style and learning style, the less positive the student's attitude toward what the learners were studying. 

ICQs?

In addition to comprehension checking questions, CCQs, that a teacher uses to check whether learners understood what he/she said, a teacher can also use instruction checking questions, ICQs, to check if students understood instruction so that they do not ask instruction questions when they do the task. ICQs are typically three short questions: the first is a wh-word question such as what will you do? Or how will you do it? Or it could even be how much time do you have? The second is a yes/no question whose answer is “no” such as will you work alone? Or will you meet only one person? Then the third question whose answer should be "yes" could be will you mingle and meet different classmates? or Will you take notes while talking to peers?

Using ICQs, on one hand, helps to reduce the confusion that learners have about what to do with the task at hand and decreases the number of questions that some learners may ask during the task which distract other learners. ICQs, on the other hand, help the teacher better monitor the learners while they are doing the activity. 

Multiple Intelligences

One of the most important issues, which language teachers should keep in mind when teaching, is multiple intelligences which in turn refers to the different learning styles of language learners. Therefore, when teaching, language instructors should use different teaching styles to address different personalities that could be intrapersonal, interpersonal, kinesthetic, aural or tactile. Using all intelligences at a time is something ideal, but the more intelligences the instructor can address, the more different personalities can learn.    

Suggestopedia

Suggestopedia one of the teaching methods developed by the Bulgarian psychotherapist Georgi Lozanov in the 1970s. It is used in different fields, but mostly in the field of foreign language learning. Lozanov has claimed that by using this method students can learn a language approximately three to five times as quickly as through conventional teaching methods.

Suggestopedia has been called a pseudoscience. It strongly depends on the trust that students develop towards the method by simply believing that it works.

However, as the method improved, it has focused more on “desuggestive learning” and now is often called “desuggestopedia.” Suggestopedia is a portmanteau of the words “suggestion” and “pedagogy". A common misconception is to link "suggestion" to "hypnosis".