Multisensory learning applied to TEFL in Secondary Education

Abstract

This project hopes to be a brief essay advocating the power of multisensory learning applied to Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL) classroom dynamics. For that purpose we will review multisensory learning rationale based on two major pedagogical trends, Bloom’s taxonomy and his revision on the affective domain, and Gardner’s theory of multiple intelligences. As already mentioned, both hypotheses are on the basis of multisensory learning foundation, as both propose that we are born gifted with the most powerful tool for learning, our brain. Brain inner mechanisms are connected among them, and eventually, scientific research has proven that our five senses, alone or combined, are the doors for such a significant learning to be happening. Although multisensory learning offers us the interesting possibility of reaching a meaningful learning more quickly by making use of our senses, it has been occasionally rejected. The entertaining lessons which students usually enjoy seem apparently too empty of contents for some teachers who disregard this method by claiming that we are losing all control over our students’ learning process.