When I was learning my native language Chinese, I enjoyed reading books, even when I was a little kid. I started with books that have a lot of pictures because pictures can often stimulate my brain and help me comprehend the contents more easily. Chinese has a system called Pinyin that shows the pronunciation of Chinese characters using letters. I learned Pinyin before I started learning the actual Chinese characters. My mom bought me some more books after she saw my interest in reading, and she also helped me to subscribe to a couple of magazines for kids. Reading, or in other words, visual learning played a major part in my learning of Chinese in the early years. By reading various types of books on my own, I developed a large vocabulary earlier than others. The speaking and listening part of learning seemed to come naturally, also I do remember listening to tapes of children stories. Besides that, watching children cartoons was another way I improved my listening and speaking skills. Later on, when I started to learn English, reading books and watching videos was my preferred way of learning. In English classes, I also preferred to taking notes and reviewing them afterward.
I have always been more of a visual learner. From the survey I finished, auditory takes up 20%, tactile learning takes up 35%, and visual learning takes up the rest 45%. The survey result defined a visual learner as someone learn by reading or seeing pictures, understand and remember things by sight, picture what you are learning in your head, and learn best by using methods that are primarily visual. Visual learners are usually neat and clean. They often close eyes to visualize or remember something and will find something to watch if become bored. I think this description fits me perfectly. If I’m only getting spoken instructions for learning, it is way harder for me to comprehends those because I like to visualize those instructions in my head in order to understand them.
The survey also suggested a few tips that can help visual learners to do better. Use flashcards to learn new words: I personally already find this quite helpful when I am learning English. I like to memorize a picture or a scenario that I can associate with the word, so I can automatically come up with the word when I see the picture or vice versa. Try to visualize things that you hear or things that are read to you: I think this is also helpful when I read stories in the new language I learn because having a visual image in mind can be useful when I try to remember things. Write down keywords, ideas, or instructions: I always prefer having a lot of notes on my notebook because when I am writing down something, my mind is actually already trying to remember it. Besides this, I think having conversations with people who are fluent in the language I learn will also aid me with improving my skills.
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