Sensing and Intuitive Learners

In his theory of psychological types, Jung (1971) introduced sensation and intuition as the two ways in which people tend to perceive the world. Sensing involves observing, gathering data through the senses; intuition involves indirect perception by way of the subconscious— accessing memory, speculating, imagining. Everyone uses both faculties constantly, but most people tend to favor one over the other. The strength of this preference has been assessed for millions of people using the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) (Myers & McCaulley 1985; Myers and Myers 1980), and the different ways in which sensors and intuitors approach learning have been characterized (Lawrence 1993). Sensor–intuitor differences in language learning have been explored by Moody (1988) and Ehrman and Oxford (1990).

Sensors tend to be concrete and methodical, intuitors to be abstract and imaginative. Sensors like facts, data, and experimentation; intuitors deal better with principles, concepts, and theories. Sensors are patient with detail but do not like complications; intuitors are bored by detail and welcome complications. Sensors are more inclined than intuitors to rely on memorization as a learning strategy and are more comfortable learning and following rules and standard procedures. lntuitors like variety, dislike repetition, and tend to be better equipped than sensors to accommodate new concepts and exceptions to rules. Sensors are careful but may be slow; intuitors are quick but may be careless.

Moody (1988) administered the MBTI to 491 college language students at the first- and second-year levels. Fifty-nine percent of the students were intuitors, substantially more than the 40 percent found for a sample of 18,592 general college students (Myers & McCaulley 1985). This pattern is not altogether surprising if one presumes that a substantial number of the students were either majoring in a language or taking the courses as electives. As Moody notes, language is by its nature symbolic, which would tend to make it more attractive to intuitors than to the more concrete and literalminded sensors.

Ehrman and Oxford (1990) studied learning strategies and teaching approaches preferred by sensors and intuitors in an intensive language training program. The sensors used a variety of memorization strategies like internal drills and flash cards, liked class material that might better be described as practical than fanciful, and liked highly structured and well organized classes with clear goals and milestones for achievement. Intuitors preferred teaching approaches that involved greater complexity

and variety, tended to be bored with drills, and were better able than sensors to learn independently of the instructor’s teaching style.

Basic language instruction that involves a great deal of repetitive drill and memorization of vocabulary and grammar (the sort of teaching style often found in pre-college and community college classes) is better suited to sensors than intuitors. If there is too much of this sort of thing without a break, the intuitors— who constitute the majority of the class, if Moody’s results are representative—may become bored with the subject and their course performance may consequently deteriorate. On the other hand, strongly intuitive language instructors may tend to move too quickly through the basic vocabulary and rules of grammar in their eagerness to get to “the more interesting material”—grammatical complexities, nuances of translation, linguistic concepts, and cultural considerations. While the intuitive students may enjoy these topics, overemphasizing such material may result in insufficient grounding in the building blocks of the language. The sensors, in particular, may then start to fall behind and do poorly on homework and tests.

Effective instruction reaches out to all students, not just those with one particular learning style. Students taught entirely with methods antithetical to their learning style may be made too uncomfortable to learn effectively, but they should have at least some exposure to those methods to develop a full range of learning skills and strategies (Smith & Renzulli 1984).

To be effective, language instruction should therefore contain elements that appeal to sensors and other elements that appeal to intuitors. The material presented in every class should be a blend of concrete information (word definitions, grammatical rules) and concepts (syntactical and semantic information, linguistic and cultural background information), with the percentage of each being chosen to fit the level of the course (beginning, intermediate, or advanced) and the age and level of sophistication of the students.