Enhancing learning using sensory specific words

Everyone uses their senses to learn. Most people have an unconscious successful strategy for learning that is triggered when the information is presented in a preferred way. Teachers normally cover the different learning styles by telling, showing and then getting a pupil to experience what they need to learn. This can work while the student can experience what they need to learn. Many things cannot be experienced in a classroom due to expense, location or that the concept is a theoretical model.

Some schools go so far as to teach students in groups labelling them as visual, auditory or kinaesthetic learners. In my view this negates the fact that a students preferred leaning style is not the only one that they can learn by. A multi sensory approach also enriches the internal memory and facilitates the possibility that a memory to be triggered by different senses.

At the same time many teachers miss out on stimulating the inner world where the students make their meaning of what is being taught. One way to help students make their own meaning is to use sensory specific language to evoke a representation of information or a model for the students. This has been done for thousands of years in the form of stories.

I use this technique in science lessons in the form of guided multi-sensory experiences:

With a year 7 group I taught them photosynthesis. They all sat with their eyes closed: “ Imagine you are a hungry tree, feel your roots in the ground and sense the water flowing up through the root hairs and up the trunk to the leaves, notice the carbon dioxide flowing in through the stoma, sense the sunlight on your leaves and the energy passing through into through the palisade cells”, etc. I continued through the whole process. They even asked me to repeat it one more time to ensure they had all the detail. Subsequent work done with a colleague in the form of posters was of a higher standard, containing more detail than I had experienced with previous groups.

With the same group while teaching about predators and prey: “Notice the grass brushing across your fur , as you lie their hidden looking out across the plain. Will you chase that old antelope, or the new born baby? The animals get closer and you spring forward ... etc. This story involved the chase, sinking the teeth into the neck of the prey and then hauling it up the tree out of the way of the lions and hyenas. The animal they experienced was a cheetah. I asked the students what they learnt that they did not know before: “it's hard work chasing“, “they don't half have to concentrate hard”.

When teaching forces and the force of reaction, I get the students to imagine being on a stool held above a giant large fluffy pink marsh mellow. As the crane lets go of them, they experience sinking into the marsh mellow until they stop sinking. The force that stops them sinking any more is the force of reaction pushing upwards. This helps to create an experiential memory.

Words to use are when eliciting an experience are: notice, imagine, become aware of, sense (allows the students to unconsciously choose which sense) and words that are sensory specific to evoke those experiences. (See word summary at the end)

For students who are literal or those that are right brained this technique enhances their memory and understanding. As concepts get more difficult then use of sensory language can bring alive models that are normally left brained in origin. Einstein frequently used thought experiments involving all the senses, e.g. flying across the Universe on a light beam while simultaneously sitting on an asteroid.

One way to stimulate the use of different senses is to: Play a sound and ask; “what does it feel or look like?” or show a picture and ask “what does it feel like?” or “what sound would it have?”

Use words from the lists below to enrich your descriptions metaphors and explanations. The more senses you use the stronger the memory you will create. Try using words from only one sense at a time and then all three.

Visual	Auditory	Kinaesthetic	Unspecified
See Look View Appear Show Dawn Reveal Envision illuminate twinkle clear foggy focused hazy sparkling crystal clear flash imagine picture visualise	Hear Listen Sound(s) Make music Harmonise Tune in/out Be all ears Rings a bell Silence Be heard Resonate Deaf Mellifluous Dissonance Attune Overtones Unhearing Question Tone Click Tell Timbre Resonance	Feel Touch Grasp Get hold of Slip through catch on tap into make contact throw out turn around hard unfeeling concrete scrape unbudging get a handle on solid suffer	Sense Experience Understand Think Learn Imagine Process Decide Motivate Consider Change Perceive Insensitive Distinct Conceive Be conscious Know explore

The following are descriptions which indicate a particular sense and therefore can be used when creating a metaphor for a specific sense.

Visual	Auditory	Kinaesthetic
An eyeful Appears to me Beyond a shadow of a doubt Birds-eye view Catch a glimpse of Clear cut Dim view Eye to eye Flashed on Get a perspective on Get a scope on Hazy idea In light of In person In view of Looks like Make a scene Mental images Mental picture Mind's eye Paint a picture Photographic -memory Plainly see Pretty as a picture See to it Short-sighted Showing off Sight for sore eyes Take a peak Tunnel vision Up front Under your nose	Afterthought Blabbermouth Clear as a bell Clearly expressed Call on Describe in detail Earful Express yourself Give an account of Give me your ear Grant an audience Heard voices Hidden message Hold your tongue Idle talk inquire into Keynote speaker Loud and clear Manner of speaking Pay attention to Power of speech Purrs like a kitten Outspoken Rap session Rings a bell State your purpose Tattle tale To tell the truth Tongue tied Tuned in/out Unheard of Utterly Word for word Within hearing range ill informed	All washed up Boils down to it Chip of the old block Come to grips with Control yourself Cool/calm/collected Firm foundations Floating on thin air Get a handle on this Get in touch with Get the drift of Get your goat Hand in hand Hang in there Heated argument Hold it! Hold on! Hot-headed Keep your shirt on! Know -how Lay cards on table Light-headed Moment of panic Not following you Pain in the neck Pull some strings Sharp as a tack Slipped my mind Smooth operator So-so Start from scratch Stiff upper lip Stuffed shirt Topsy-turvy