Investigating Kurdish EFL Students’ Learning Styles at University Level

Abstract

The present study aims at investigating the students’ learning styles in EFL classes at university level.  Being aware of the students’ preferences and feedback concerning the way teachers teach and run their classes is important to ensure the success of the process of teaching and learning. Neglecting the students’ feedback and preferences in the class might affect the process of teaching and learning negatively. To avoid such a problem, the present study equips the teachers with a way to deal with different learning environments and class diversity. To achieve the aims of the study, a questionnaire of 20 items on the different learning preferences was designed by the researcher to collect data from 40 EFL seniors (23 males and 17 females) at University of Zakho during the academic year 2020-2021.The items included in the questionnaire are based on Fleming’s (2006) VARK model of learning styles with adaptation.  VARK is an acronym referring to the four types of learners: Visual, Aural, Read and Write, and Kinesthetic. The data collected were analyzed using SPSS Software version 22 through One-Sample T-Test and Independent-Paired Samples T-Test. The results show that the students prefer using the board and taking notes during the lecture and dislike attending online lectures via Zoom and Google Meet platforms. They also do not prefer recorded PowerPoint lectures uploaded to the Moodle. This is an indication that locking universities and adopting a blended system of teaching due to Covid-19 has affected the process of teaching as well as learning negatively. This study can be considered as a road map for EFL teachers when launching teaching any module since it takes into consideration what the students are interested in, namely class diversity and students’ preferences.