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Students bring a vast array of learning styles to the English classroom, and teachers bring their own, unique teaching styles. With this in mind, we have recently launched Gogo Loves English New Edition, a six-level primary course for English. This updated series integrates a wide variety of materials and activities that meets the needs of different kinds of young learners: auditory, logical, visual, kinesthetic, musical, interpersonal and intrapersonal.

Let's take a look at how the various activities in Gogo Loves English address the different ways that children learn.

First, for our auditory learners, we have listening components throughout the book on almost every page. These learners love to play with words and their sounds and generally do well with talking things through and listening to what others, students and teachers, have to say. These children enjoy activities such as storytelling and listening games.

Logical children are problem solvers and rational, numbers-oriented learners. We can appeal to these learners even in the English classroom. For example, try turning the English alphabet into a numerical code, e.g. 1=A, 2=B, 3=C, 4=D, 5=E, etc. Based on this simple code, what does 4-1-4 stand for? Can you see it? That's right: it' s "Dad." Now, how about 2-1-4 and 2-5-1-4? See how quickly you can decode these. Other activities that these learners enjoy are puzzles, patterns, sequences, card games and memory games and there are many of these activities in our Teacher's Books.

Let's turn our attention to the visual learners. These are generally our students who love to sit up in the front of the class. They want to see the teacher's expressions as he/she teaches. This learning style is apparent in children who need to "see" what the teacher is talking about. They make meaning for themselves most readily through pictures. Thus, activities where students can draw, paint and color can also help students learn English. In Gogo Loves English, we appeal to the visual learners with activities where teachers dictate words or phrases and students draw pictures to illustrate the meaning, as well as other artistic projects. For these students, we have the Gogo video series, photocopiables for every unit, and other ideas for realia that allow students to "see" their way to understanding.

The kinesthetic learners in our classes are the explorers: they like to get up, move around and touch things. They enjoy activities from Total Physical Response (TPR) games to Simon says, charades and other pantomiming games. Because young students sometimes find it hard to sit still through an entire class, we have put in many activities that call for students to get up, move, and explore everything in a very hands-on manner.

How about songs and chants? They are effective and motivating for all children, but particularly for musical learners. Musical students love to explore sounds and how they go together in songs and chants. Gogo Loves English gives them plenty of opportunities to do so with songs and chants in every unit.

The interpersonal learner is best represented by the student who loves to get up and interact with others. They love to do cooperative activities that give the opportunities to work and learn from their fellow students. We have numerous games and activities for this learning style, such as pair work, interviews, group projects and surveys that students can conduct in the classroom and even in the community. After all, having our students take English outside the classroom to communicate with others is our ultimate goal in English education.

And what about the child who is self motivated and prefers to work on his or her own? This is our intrapersonal learner. We may think of intrapersonal students as shy, but generally these kids have a good sense of self and are quite secure. They enjoy personalization activities, such as drawing, writing and talking about one's own family, house, or school. They also like publishing projects, where students produce their own books that incorporate newly learned English words/expressions.

The more ways we can give our students to explore English, use English and have fun with English, the more likely we are to keep all our students motivated and successful.

The different learning styles don't just describe our students; they can describe us as teachers. Some teachers, for example, are strong logical thinkers, but are not as interested in music. Likely, these teachers will not do a lot of songs and chants in their classrooms. So students who are strong in the musical area may not have all their needs met in those classrooms. Teachers should always bring their strengths into the classroom and share these strengths with their students. But these teachers should also push themselves to try new things in their classrooms in order to motivate and support all their students and their different learning styles.

In Gogo Loves English New Edition, we have created a course that provides teachers with a range of tools for activities to appeal to all the various learning styles: Student's Books, Workbooks, Teacher's Books, Class CDs and Cassettes, large-sized Picture Cards, Videos and this website. By incorporating all these components into your lessons, you can turn your English classroom into a very exciting place.