A study of learning styles of education students enrolled in a course of second language teaching

The objectives of this study are, first, to identify the learning styles of second language teaching students; and, second, to reflect upon the relevance of learning style awareness in the context of teacher education. Both Kolb's (1984) experiential learning model and Honey and Mumford's (1986) learning style instrument were used to identify learning styles within two groups of second language teaching students at the University of Ottawa. The results demonstrate that 81.9 % of the students prefer the reflector style, while only 4.5 % and 13.6 % choose the activist and pragmatist learning styles, respectively. None of the students show any interest in the theorist style. This pattern of learning styles fuels the discussion of the predominance of the reflector mode in education and the relevance of implementing a pedagogical approach that permits learning style awareness within the context of teacher education.