When it comes to gestalt learning, the whole is greater than all of its parts. So gestalt thinkers see the whole picture as more important than the individual pieces or components. Instead of learning one part at a time, they learn in chunks called gestalts. As a result, they also learn language in chunks.

Gestalt psychology is a school of thought that seeks to understand how the human brain perceives experiences. It suggests that structures, perceived as a whole, have specific properties that are different from the sum of their individual parts.

Gestalt language acquisition is language learned in in larger units of words first, rather than single words. The process of gestalt language development is described through Natural Language Acquisition stages (see stages below). A gestalt language processor learns language in chunks of words rather than one single word at a time.

The Gestalt theory of learning purports the importance of presenting information or images that contain gaps and elements that don’t exactly fit into the picture. This type of learning requires the learner to use critical thinking and problem solving skills.

Gestalt psychologists interpreted learning as a purposive, exploratory and creative enterprise. A learner, while learning, always perceives the situation as a whole (idea of grouping) and after seeing and evaluating the different relationships, takes the proper decision – intelligently through Insight.