Learning Strategies for Auditory Learners

When information is received by sound, auditory learners learn best. They would rather listen to other people speak than read books. However, while explaining themselves and participating in group discussions and dialogues, they also learn effectively.

Today’s auditory learners have a plethora of excellent learning opportunities.

In this article, I’ll provide six tactics for helping auditory learners learn quickly and retain a good comprehension of the materials they’re presented with.

Let’s have a look at the most prevalent learning styles before we get into the learning tactics.

In a study done in 1992 by Neil D. Fleming and Coleen E. Mills, the acronym VARK was used to describe the 4 major learning styles people usually have:^[1]

V – Visual learners (learn best with diagrams, pictures, and written notes)
A – Auditory learners (learn best through sound)
R – Reading/Writing learners (learn best by reading books and doing research)
K – Kinaestethic learners (learn best by doing)

People don’t always fit neatly into one of these categories, but they frequently prefer one of these learning styles over the others.

The VARK theory appears to be more concerned with personal preferences than with learning styles being inextricably related to a person’s DNA. If you learn better through sound than through images, you can still learn well by looking at pictures or doing activities.

However, if you want to learn as effectively and comprehensively as possible, you should adopt learning approaches that are tailored to your preferences for information digestion.

While some individuals love to read, others prefer to listen to audiobooks. We don’t necessarily know the scientific answer as to why this is the case, but neither do we need it.

All we have to do now is embrace our individual choices and apply the approaches that are best suited to our preferences.

Let’s get right into the 6 learning strategies for auditory learners now that we’ve covered some basic material.

1. Make Audio Recordings Instead of Taking Notes

We all need to save the information somewhere so we can access it later, regardless of our learning styles. Auditory learners may benefit more from audio recordings than written notes when it comes to taking notes.

These could be recordings of you describing a concept you’re learning, reading a piece from a book out loud, or recordings of someone else explaining something, such as from a lecture or presentation.

You can create an audio library instead of filling up a notepad or spending hours typing on a computer keyboard.

To make this function as effectively as a colorful Mind Map for a visual learner, make it simple for yourself to retrieve and review your audio notes in the future. It’s critical that you maintain track of your audio notes.

Evernote is a fantastic tool for this. It’s simple to create a database of recordings you’ve made and keep them organized with Evernote.

Evernote also features a built-in voice recorder, which is a terrific feature. This eliminates the difficulty of manually importing voice recordings.

Make sure each recording is labeled with a brief description of what it contains. It will be too difficult to comply if you don’t.

Even though audio notes are the finest method to learn, they are a terrible way to organize information. It’s still better to go through written notes to find what you’re looking for. You can speed-read and skim over the text, but you can’t do the same with audio samples.

This is why I believe that auditory learners can still benefit from taking short written notes and even graphic Mind Maps to obtain a better perspective of the topic they’re studying and see the larger picture.

To summarise this method, use written notes to organize information and gain a broad understanding of the subject. Also, when you dig deeper into each issue to have a better comprehension of them, use audio recordings.

2. Use Speech-to-Text Software

Auditory learners are generally skilled at talking and explaining things, but they struggle to articulate themselves on paper. As a result, individuals may find the process of taking oral notes to be enjoyable.

There are a number of apps available now that allow you to speak into your phone and have the words transformed into SMS as you speak.

It may take some time to become completely comfortable with this method of taking notes. However, with a little effort, you can compose text swiftly utilizing this strategy.

When I’m taking notes, I frequently do this. When I’m writing an article, I’ll sometimes start by speaking into my phone as a preliminary draught.

It’s a lot faster than typing, and I’d have had to go back and edit the wording anyway if I’d been typing, so it saves me time.

For this, I use the software SpeechTexter. It is available for free download. The major reason I enjoy this app is that you can use unique voice commands to configure it to insert specific symbols.

You may quickly structure your writing solely with your voice and insert things like new paragraphs, commas, colons, and other punctuation marks as you speak.

You may also quickly copy or export the content and paste it into your preferred note-taking application. The main advantage is that it is ideal for auditory learners.

Instead of needing to run your thoughts through a “slow typing speed” filter, you can capture them directly from your mind with your voice.

If you’re a slow typer, the speech-to-text method will make capturing your thoughts into texts much easier. It also makes it easy to keep your train of thought going. You can go back and edit any words, punctuation, or formatting that the software didn’t pick up right after you’ve recorded.

3. Podcasts and Audiobooks

In recent years, the availability of high-quality podcasts and audiobooks has increased. This is fantastic news for auditory learners. If you want to study something unique to a course you’re taking, podcasts and audiobooks aren’t necessarily the best options. They are, nonetheless, excellent sources of general information and learning.

Blinkist and Audible are two services worth looking into. If you’re a visual learner, you’re doing yourself a disservice if you don’t use your senses.

Podcasts and audiobooks are also excellent time-savers. Listen to podcasts and audiobooks when you’re cooking, drying your clothes, cleaning your house, or doing anything else that doesn’t require your full attention.

4. Listen First, Make Notes Afterward

If you’re attending a discussion, masterclass, lecture, or presentation, you should give the presenter your whole attention. Taking notes requires a lot of concentration, and if you focus solely on that, you may lose track of the lecturer’s entire thinking process.

If you’re an auditory learner, focusing all of your attention on understanding what the speaker is saying will help you get a lot more out of the event.

This is an excellent method for you because auditory learners are more likely to retain a lot of the information that is spoken in the lecture. The more attentively you listen and concentrate during the lesson, the better your chances of remembering it are.

You will recall the material much better if you try to create visual images in your imagination while listening.

After the lecture, go over everything in your brain, remember all the important ideas, and jot down as much as you can. Alternatively, you might capture it and save it in your note-taking software.

This is not only more effective in terms of learning, but it also forces you to hone your recall skills. You must put the information to use after you have written it down. Consider it on a regular basis, and relate it to the information you already have.

This is the same strategy that allows the famous psychologist Jordan Peterson to remember so much of what he’s reading:

“People ask me how it is that I can remember all the things that I talk about extemporaneously when I’m lecturing, and the reason for that is because I’ve thought them through. … It’s kind of like I’m attaching little memory hooks to it in five different ways. And then I’ve got it. It’s part of me.”^[2]

5. Explain It Out Loud to Yourself

This is one of the most effective and simple ways for auditory learners to learn. You can strengthen your comprehension of something by putting it into your own words. You’ll also benefit from the Feynman Technique, which is one of the most effective learning methods available.

The Feynman Technique is a learning method devised and utilized by Nobel Laureate and physicist Richard Feynman.

The following is how it works:

Pretend you’re teaching a child about a concept you’re learning. Make a list of the sections of your explanation that you’re having trouble explaining clearly, as well as any gaps in your knowledge of the idea.

After that, go over the subject again and try to simplify the explanation yet again. Rep this process until you can confidently convey the subject in basic terms—simple enough for a 6-year-old to grasp.

To explain something in simple terms, you must first grasp it thoroughly. When attempting to describe something you don’t fully comprehend, your explanation is likely to be hazy. That would be incomprehensible to a child.

To explain something in your own words, you must think about it thoroughly. This is why Feynman’s technique works so well. It forces you to grasp every last detail since that is what is required to explain it in simple terms.

“If you can’t explain it to a six-year-old, you don’t understand it yourself.” —Albert Einstein

6. Engage in Conversation With Others

Auditory learners are more likely than those with other learning styles to participate in group discussions. Talking with others in a group about the material you’re learning will also help you grasp it better.

This has a lot of the same impacts as the earlier technique I discussed. One of the most effective ways to reinforce knowledge in oneself is to explain what you’re learning, whether to yourself or others.

When you’re practicing explaining something to yourself, talking to real people is often even better. When you’re in a group conversation, you’re under pressure to express yourself clearly and concisely.

And this really puts your understanding of the topic to the test. There is another reason why engaging in conversation with others would help.

Hearing others explain something in their own words can help you understand the subject better, especially if you find it difficult to read about it.

Bottom Line

As you can see, auditory learners can learn efficiently through a variety of approaches and tactics. With all of the technology instruments available today, we might almost call this the “golden age” of auditory learning.

Viewing things from a variety of viewpoints and perspectives, on the other hand, has been proven by science to be a great means of fully comprehending a subject.^[3]

Even if you’re an aural learner, you’ll receive the best results if you apply a variety of approaches, including those that aren’t specifically designed for auditory learners.