Active and Reflective Learners

The complex mental processes by which perceived information is converted into knowledge can be conveniently grouped into two categories: active experimentation and reflective observation (Kolb 1984). Active processing involves doing something in the external world with the information—discussing it or explaining it or testing it in some way—and reflective processing involves examining and manipulating the information introspectively.

An active learner is someone with more of a natural tendency toward active experimentation than toward reflective observation, and conversely for a reflective learner. Active learners learn well in situations that enable them to do something physical and reflective learners learn well in situations that provide them with opportunities to think about the information being presented. The more opportunities students have to both participate and reflect in class, the better they will learn new material and the longer they are likely to retain it (KoIb 1984; McCarthy 1987). Language classes in which all students are relegated to passive roles, listening to and observing the instructor and taking notes, do little to promote learning for either active or reflective learners. Language classes should therefore include a variety of active learning experiences, such as conversations, enactment of dialogues and minidramas, and team competitions, and reflective experiences, such as brief writing exercises and question formulation exercises.

Small-group exercises can be extremely effective for both active and reflective learners (Johnson et al. 1991). Pose a question or problem (“Translate this sentence.” “What’s wrong with what I just wrote?” “How many synonymsfor ‘happy’ can you think of in 30 seconds?” “What question do you have about what we covered today?”) and have students come up with answers working in groups of three, with one group member acting as recorder. Such exercises engage all the students, not just the small minority who typically participate in class, and are a rich source of responses and material for subsequent discussion. The exercises also relieve the monotony of continuous lectures. In our experience, as little as five minutes of group work in a 50-minute period can be enough to maintain the students’ attention for the entire class.

Group work must be used with care, however: simply telling students to work together on problems or projects can do more harm than good. Most references on cooperative learning (e.g., Johnson et al. 1991) point out that students often respond negatively to group work at first, and that the benefits of the approach are fully realized when the group work is structured to assure such features as positive interdependence, individual accountability, and appropriate uses of teamwork and interpersonal skills. Reid (1987) studied students from a variety of ethnic backgrounds and found that every background expressed a minor or negative preference for group work, with English speakers giving it the lowest rating. When language students have been taught cooperative skills, however, they showed positive results in both language skill and altruism (Gunderson & Johnson 1980; Jacob & Mattson 1987).