What exactly is the communicative learner type anyway?
As the name suggests, the communicative learner prefers to learn through communication. The communicative learner type likes to talk to others about the learning material and thus memorizes it best. The learning motto of the communicative learner type is “Let’s talk about it!”. Ears and mouth are the most active sensory organs of the communicative learner type. He loves partner work and the exchange with others. Discussions and conversations about new knowledge are particularly stimulating for these students. Understanding, organizing and storing new information or action sequences works best in dialog. So a great learning strategy is to talk through explanations out loud. What is especially important for people who like to learn communicatively is to take different positions: both that of the questioner and that of the explainer. These different points of view illuminate a topic from diverse angles and thus help with acquisition.
The main sense of the communicative learner is the ears and the mouth. So anything that has to do with interacting with others, this learning type loves. If you memorize learning material best by interacting with someone else, then it’s possible that the communicative side is one of his strengths.
Are you a verbal person and learn most by talking to other people? Learning type tests alone are not always meaningful, however, because almost everyone is a hybrid of different learning types, as previously mentioned. It is often helpful to simply listen to your intuition and answer the following questions:
- Do you like to learn with others?
- Do you like to role play or act?
- Do you like to ask questions when something is not clear to you?
- Do you like to present without problems?
- Do you like to participate in conversations and discussions with others?
- Do you often recall past conversations when recalling information?
If you answered “yes” to the majority of these questions, then there is a good chance that you enjoy communicative learning.
The communicative learner type learns best in interaction with others. Interaction in learning groups is particularly conducive to absorbing, processing, and retaining new knowledge. It is often useful to have written down or read the information beforehand in order to facilitate a better dialogue. Communicating with others allows, on the one hand, hearing another explanation and, on the other hand, expressing one’s own explanation. Both channels, listening and speaking, contribute to learning.
Communicative learners learn best in interaction with other people. So it is no coincidence that students who like to learn with their mouths and ears prefer to learn together with others. Through discussion, exchange and talking through texts, new knowledge is effectively transferred to memory, from where it can be retrieved later.
A conversation partner is essential for the communicative learner. So it’s best to choose a good friend with whom you can study well, meet regularly, for example once a week and a little more often and intensively before a school assignment. After eating and doing your homework, you can study together in a relaxed learning atmosphere. Video conferencing with other students works wonders! This way, you can learn together with others regardless of geographic proximity. Another option, of course, is family members. Parents and siblings can act as learning buddies as well!
Communicative learners tend to pick up a lot during the lesson. It is important to ask questions directly if something is unclear and to get in touch with others. Questions can best be clarified with the teacher or other classmates. Active participation not only impresses the teacher, but also allows the communicative learner to take more away from the lesson than from simply reading a script.
Vivid learning videos offer great potential for learning. Pictures and explanations help the imagination of certain content. Although communication with other people is not possible on YouTube and therefore this learning tip is not 100% perfect for the communicative learning type, audiovisual learning is definitely better for this learning type than learning from paper.
Especially when preparing for a written exam, talking about the material is important. Parents, siblings or friends can quiz the student to see which subject matter is already bombproof and which may still need repetition. It’s all about interaction and alternating between questions, follow-up questions, answers, and corrections.
Simply explaining the material helps the communicative learner type to understand this knowledge better themselves. This can be an informal conversation at the breakfast table or an exam with points. It is essential that the whole thing takes place orally.
If you haven’t found a study partner, you can simply talk to yourself. Probably it is a little strange at the beginning to get into conversation with oneself, but it is certainly effective. Because: Great geniuses, like Einstein or Plato, also talked to themselves!
If you can’t get into a conversation with yourself, how about the desk lamp, a stuffed animal or a houseplant? They are all very patient listeners! Sounds funny, but it can work.
Perhaps what is said can also be recorded and listened to on the go, as a separate podcast, so to speak. In this way, the auditory learning channel can also be strengthened, because one thing is certain: the more senses are active during learning, the more successful!
A role play is the ideal combination of learning partner and playful learning. Students can imitate interviews and, for example, take on the role of a famous person who is supposed to answer questions about the current learning material. 🎤 This famous person can be your child’s favorite YouTube star, for example. The school material should be explained in a cool and creative way – like a new video game or beauty product.
Fancy a study group role play? A group discussion might look something like this, with each participant taking on a different role. Ideas for possible roles: Facilitator, Expert, Layperson. The role play can simply be live, or it can be recorded and then shown to others as a review of the learning. Perhaps the engaged students will get bonus collaboration points from the teacher?
The format “Who wants to be a millionaire?” or “Millionenshow” is ideal for repeating learning material interactively. Students learn something as soon as they work out possible questions and answers, because the level of difficulty should be appropriately high. The questions and answers can be written on small cards and as extra motivation there can be a small prize to be won. To make the game more communicative, the answer options can be omitted. Thus, an explanatory answer that is as easy to understand as possible must always be given. The format is also well suited for a final check of the level of knowledge before an exam.
Speaking is at the heart of language learning – for communicative learners even more so than for other students. Regular meetings and language tandems are therefore a great opportunity to speak the target language on a regular basis. Learn more about how and where to find an online language tandem here. The best way to learn a language is, of course, to travel. Learn more about language camps here!