Integrating Cooperative Learning and Learning Styles in Teaching Danish as a Second Language
Integrating Cooperative Learning and Learning Styles in Teaching Danish as a Second Language

Summary/Abstract: The aim of this paper is to examine the extent to which insights from two didactic models, Spencer Kagan’s Cooperative Learning, and Ken and Rita Dunn’s Learning Styles, respectively can jointly be translated into praxis in the context of second language teaching. To that purpose, the paper adopts the perspective of the practitioner, i.e., language instructor, as much as of that of the researcher, in that it reports the author’s experience at the center for Danish as a second language, Lærdansk Kolding, Denmark, as a result of a three-month job shadowing stay in the spring of 2011. The main focus of the paper is the challenge of creating an efficient teaching/learning environment at Lærdansk Kolding, in which not only language, but also social skills need to be taught, to groups of learners which are heterogeneous in terms of educational and cultural background, language skills and age, by simultaneously observing externally imposed time constrains. In this specific context, many of the theoretical tools offered by both Cooperative Learning and Learning Styles become particularly relevant.

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