Making up about 30% of the population, auditory learners absorb information best through the sense of hearing. Some of their main characteristics include:

• Being talkative in class
• Relate most effectively to the spoken word
• Learn effectively through lectures, audio books, oral presentations, music, or verbal instructions
• Unless heard, information has little relevance
• Prefer giving oral reports to written ones
• Remember who said what in the past
• Enjoy discussions and debates
• Benefit from reading aloud
• Follow oral directions better than written ones
• Tend to memorize well
• Prefer listening to the news
• Remember names
• Notice sound effects in movies
• Don’t automatically understand graphs, diagrams, or maps
• Enjoy talking to others
• Like to tell jokes and stories
• Enjoy music
• Often sing, hum, or whistle to themselves
• May use finger as pointer when reading
• Talk to selves
• Good at grammar and foreign languages
• Repeat phone numbers in order to remember them
• Use jingles to remember pieces of information
• Benefit from study groups
• Prefer to listen to music rather than view a piece of art
• Read slowly
• Follow spoken directions well
• May be articulate speakers
• Can’t keep quiet for long

Suggestions for Auditory Learners

• Use audiotapes for learning languages
• Read textbooks aloud
• Repeat facts with eyes closed
• Ask questions
• Describe aloud what is to be remembered
• Use word association to remember facts and lines
• Watch videos
• Participate in group discussions
• Listen to taped notes
• Record lectures and listen to them again
• Use audiobooks
• Avoid auditory distractions

Preferred Test Styles for Auditory Learners

Writing responses to lectures, oral exams

Worst Test Type

Reading comprehension exercises

Possible Career Paths

Writer, journalist, teacher, lawyer, politician, blogger, translator, poet