The Process of Learning

The knowledge of the process of learning is the basis to understand and use personal potential in life to achieve positive results in all careers, both at school and work; a constructive comparison, by exchanging reciprocal experience as a chance of mutual enrichment in terms of cul­ture and skills, is necessary in life.
Learning is composed of three inseparable stages:
1. Transmission of data to the outside: Transfer or External moment;
2. Reception, Elaboration and Memorization of data: Self Transfer or Internal moment;
3. Transmission of data to the outside: Transfer or External moment.
The learner as a student, worker or performer and the teacher as a source of information, may play different roles according to the three different moments:
1. External moment: The learner is the addressee of the teacher's information whereas the teacher is ob­viously the addresser¹;
2. Internal moment: The learner receives the teacher's information and reacts through elaborating, memo­rizing and internalising it;
3. External moment: The learner is the transmitter of the information marked by his own personality; the learner becomes addresser whereas the teacher, as a potential audience, becomes the addressee. Learning involves a process in which information starts from the outside and arrives to the outside by pass­ing through the mediation of the learner.
Learning may be compared to computer processing:
1. External Moment: Output: Emission of data;
2. Internal Moment: Input: Insertion of data;
3. External Moment: Output: Emission of data;
The three moments are connected together by the communication of information:
1. External Moment: The learner receives communication from others;
2. Internal Moment: The learner communicates within himself;
3. External Moment: The learner communicates with others.
It is important to analyse the three stages of learning.
External Moment
The teacher, the trainer, the videotape and audiotape are sources of information because they transmit audio-vi­sual data such as voices, sounds, writings, and images. These sources play an active role in learning as they com­municate with the learner in an accessible way. For example, the manager's language to explain to his employees the content of economic laws should be suitable to the oc­casion. So the possibility of the intelligibility of a message depends on the language used by the transmitter, both in form and content and in manner and matter: the language should change according to the features of the audience regarding culture, beliefs, age: major intelligibility gives major understanding.
The communication of the message between the speaker and the listener, or the writer and the reader, oc­curs when the message is transferred from the addresser to the addressee. The aim of the message is its own trans­mission.
The communication of the message occurs when the message itself is received in its right meaning:
Meaning of Transmission: A
Meaning of Reception: A.
The communication of the message does not occur when the message itself is not received in its right mean­ing:
Meaning of Transmission: A
Meaning of Reception: B.
Internal Moment
Observing the learner as the addressee of the message is studying his reaction to external information: the learn­er's behaviour may be characterized by initiative or not. The learner has no initiative when he just receives and ac­cepts information from the transmitter.
The learner's predisposition to receive depends on his willingness and interest in the topic:
Major willingness and interest mean major predisposi­tion to receive;
Minor willingness and interest mean minor predispo­sition to receive.
When the learner has neither willingness nor interest the message is not received even when it is clear and com­prehensible. The teacher can arouse the learner's motiva­tion by joining theory to practice, learning to living: the teacher should teach how to translate school-skills into work-skills and life-skills. The learner may be broad-minded or narrow-minded in his inner acceptance or re­fusal of the external message,
The learner's inner acceptance or refusal may be disclosed by his posture as the physical manifestation to ex­press broad/narrow-mindedness. The interviewee's head, looking down, and his folded arms may be the display of the rejection of communication: the interviewee does not show his intention of listening to the interviewer as well as his intention of being listened to by the interviewer.
The interviewee's correct posture may be the display of the realization of the communication with the external world: the interviewee shows his assertiveness in his inten­tion of paying attention to the interviewer and of attract­ing the interviewer's attention. The features of the ideal physical attendance in Counselling are contained in the acronym SOLER: Squarely, Open, Leaning forward, Eye contact and Relaxed (Egan, G. 1998).
The learner has initiative when he elaborates external information by personalizing it.
The learner, as the student, learns or studies in this way:
1. He gathers the external data concerning a particular topic;
2. He selects data;
3. He puts data in a logical, chronological, alphabetical sequence;
4. He associates data for differences or similarities.
The learner memorizes when through the reiteration of a particular subject he can remember it not only for himself but also for others at the right time and place. Learning is completely useless if the learner cannot communicate it both in an oral and written form.-The way of receiving, elaborating and memorizing data depends on the personality of the student and changes according to it. The teacher's message is one for all students but each student receives it differently, by trans­forming it in connection with his personal knowledge, ability, aptitude, habits and goals.
External Moment
The learner becomes the addresser of information
when he communicates to an audience the message re­garding his memorised learning, received and elaborated. The student has to transmit his message to the teacher to accomplish his daily tasks or to get a good mark in his essays or examinations.
The student's language should be coherent, logical, correct in syntax and if necessary rich in technical words. The teacher's evaluation is based on the student's speech, which determines his positive or negative judgement.
Learning is accomplished and useful when the trans­ferring of information is realized:
External Moment: Transfer to the outside Internal Moment: Self-transfer to the inside External moment : Transfer  to  the outside Information should not be kept either by the addres­ser, or by the addressee, but it should be transferred by the addressee who becomes the addresser in his act of trans­ferring the information itself

¹ Addresser: the sender of information.

Alessandra d'Epiro Dusmet de Beaulieu

© COPYRIGHT 2006 All rights reserved - Proprietà letteraria ed artistica riservata Alessandra d'Epiro Dusmet de Beaulieu
no part of this web site pictures, images, articles, books,may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means electronical or mechanical including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without permission in writing from the author;every effort has been made to trace copyright holders and any rights will be aknowledged if notice is given to the author.