Multiple Intelligence

Multiple Intelligence

In his 1983 book, Frames of Mind, Howard Gardner proposed that human intelligence is composed of seven distinct capacities: linguistic intelligence, logical-mathematical intelligence, spatial intelligence, bodily kinesthetic intelligence, musical intelligence, interpersonal intelligence, and intrapersonal intelligence. Since this time Gardner has expanded his theory to include natural intelligence and he continues to explore other possible capacities for intelligence. The Theory of Multiple Intelligence combats the common notion that there are only two types of smart: language smart and math smart. Rather, it contends that each of the identified intelligences is an equally valid and important aspect of human existence.

The Theory of Multiple Intelligence has important implications for education. Specifically, it demands a reconsideration of long established teaching practices. Traditional classrooms have heavily utilized logical-mathematical and linguistic approaches to education, almost entirely excluding teaching methods that engage other types of intelligence. The problem with this situation is that while some students excel in the area of logical-mathematical or linguistic ability, many have natural abilities in areas that do not receive attention in formal educational settings. For students who do not excel in math or language, classroom performance can be discouraging. Since they are not given opportunities to develop their own unique abilities, they do not receive the satisfaction and self-confidence that comes with realizing one’s strengths. This may lead the student to feel bored or frustrated by classroom exercise. Gardner’s theory should set a foundation for teaching methods. Understanding that each student possesses unique talents and interests, it is the teacher’s responsibility to ensure that her course helps each student develop abilities and excel. This can be done by incorporating a variety of activities into lesson plans. For instance, vocabulary can be taught by memorizing a list of words, or by setting words to music or using particular words in a journal entry. Likewise, word usage can be taught by presenting example sentences to a class and having them come up with their own examples or it can be taught through role-plays or dramatic performances. In the best scenario, a teacher would be able to strike a good balance between exercising musical abilities and physical abilities, intrapersonal skills with linguistic skills and so on. Activities that utilize two or more types of intelligence are common, so exercising each capacity once or twice a week is not unreasonable. 

When structuring a course it is easy for the teacher to draw heavily on activities that maximize use of her own strengths and shy away from activities that make use of her weaknesses. For instance, I am not musically gifted, so leading the class in a song would be a challenge. Planning lessons and keeping a record of what activities were done and when goes a long way to prevent over using any particular type of intelligence or activity. By planning ahead the teacher can make sure that each ability is exercised and that no student is neglected. A course based on the Theory of Multiple Intelligence is dynamic, colorful, and varied. It offers something for every type of learner and never gets boring for the students or teacher. Though it takes more planning and effort the reward is great. Students are able to develop more abilities and everyone is given the chance to really excel. This creates a far more enjoyable and rewarding learning experience for everyone

Multiple Intelligences in the E.S.L. Classroom

Growing up, my parents provided their children with a multitude of opportunities so that we could discover our talents and nurture those skills. They enrolled me and my sister in Art, Piano, Gymnastics, Ballet/Jazz, Cello, Girl Scouts, and Kumon classes, just to name a few. Because my parents were such strong proponents of a well-integrated education, I was able to recognize my innate artistic capabilities at a very early age. 

However, as I entered High School my extra-curricular activities were reduced to Piano Lessons and Student Council. My parents brought in private tutors for my sister and me with the hope that we may excel in our Honors English and Math Courses at school. I couldn’t blame them for their decision. After all, any college- bound student who takes her future seriously must demonstrate a high proficiency in Language and Math on the standardized S.A.T. exam. I remember being frustrated by my average score, and thought how unfair it was that my aptitude in the arts had been overlooked. But fortunately for this new generation of young learners, things are beginning to change.

The theory of Multiple Intelligence was first introduced in 1983 by Dr. Howard Gardner, a professor of education at Harvard University. He asserted that the human mind contains an array of cognitive skills, and that intelligence should no longer be quantified by a single entity as it has for so long in our education system. Dr. Gardner claims that our culture places too much emphasis on Linguistic and Mathematical Intelligence. Focusing on this fixed model can consequently stifle our children’s potential growth by not allowing them to explore the intrinsic talents they possess. He classified the various intelligences into eight groups, which include: 

Linguistic Intelligence- Word smart Logical-Mathematical Intelligence- Number/Reasoning smart Spatial Intelligence- Picture smart Bodily-Kinesthetic Intelligence- Body smart Musical Intelligence- Music smart Interpersonal Intelligence- People smart Intrapersonal Intelligence- Self smart Naturalist Intelligence- Nature smart

Many educators and Learning Institutions have adopted this new perspective to classroom teaching. This new approach encourages students to think and learn in different ways, and it allows educators to reflect and adjust their pedagogical practice to meet the needs of the range of learners in their classrooms. But how should teachers apply this theory to an E.S.L. class, where understanding Language is the primary objective?

The prospect of implementing this Multiple Intelligences Paradigm for language adaptation may seem counter-intuitive at first. However, we cannot presume that learning a new language should be any more difficult for individuals that lack verbal fluency skills. After all, everyone has already adopted his or her own native language. To teach a new language should be compared to any other subject. Ultimately, what will determine their ability to absorb the information are the tools and strategies the teacher will use in the classroom. 

For instance, students with spatial intelligence may retain language more easily with visual aids, such as pictures, graphs, or video. Logical-Mathematical Students may enjoy crossword puzzles and unscrambling words, whereas, the musically inclined student may appreciate the study of song lyrics while simultaneously listening to the tune. Group and Pair work will please the Interpersonal students, and a reflective writing assignment may appeal to the Intrapersonal students. It can even help to vary the learning environment space from time to time. The teacher might consider taking the class to the zoo rather than learning the animal names from a course book.

As teachers, we are told to contextualize our lessons based on the demographic of the classroom. Just as age, culture and interests should be considered in lesson planning, teachers should become familiar with their students intelligences. This new approach to teaching and learning can make a remarkable difference in the classroom. Above all, the students will gain a strong sense of self- worth. The commitment to help students reach their optimal level of performance can only be achieved when we truly believe that every person is an intelligent being.

Multiple Intelligence

What makes a person intelligent? Is an intelligent person good at math or language? Howard Gardener theorized that there are many different ways people can be intelligent, this became known as multiple intelligence theory. In this paper I will briefly discuss who Howard Gardener is, what are the multiple intelligences and how can we use them in our TEFL classrooms.

Howard Gardener was born in 1943 in Scranton, Pennsylvania. He went to Harvard to study history and had Eric Erickson as a tutor. ‘Howard Gardner’s interest in Psychology and the social sciences grew... and he graduated summa cum laude in 1965’(Smith). In 1966 he entered Harvard’s doctoral program and became part of the Project Zero ( a research team on arts education). He completed his PhD in 1971 and became a lecturer and then a professor in education at Harvard. In 1983 Frames of Mind was published and was Howard Gardeners first full-length statement of his theory of multiple intelligences. (Smith) Originally Howard Gardener theorized that there were seven intelligences and they are linguistic, logical-mathematical, spacial, musical, kinesthetic, interpersonal and intra personal. Recently he has added naturalistic, spiritual/ existential and moral intelligences. Howard Gardener said, ‘...we are all able to know the world through language, logical- mathematical analysis, spacial representation, musical thinking, the use of the body to solve problems or to make things, an understanding of other individuals, and an understanding of ourselves. Where individuals differ is in the strength of these intelligences...’(Gardener 12) Students that are strong in verbal-linguistic intelligence love to tell stories, read and write. They may become writers, teachers, actors, business managers and poets. Students who are strong in math-logic intelligence ‘have strong problem-solving and reasoning skills and ask questions in a logical manner’ (Nicholson 10). They may become scientists, bankers, lawyers, accountants or computer programmers. Students who exhibit spacial intelligence need pictures to understand ideas better, they are great with maps, charts and diagrams. Professionals who use this intelligence are graphic artists, painters, architects, cartographers and sculptors. Students who excel in remembering melodies or recognizing pitch and rhythm are musically intelligent. Singers, dancers, musicians, composers and music teachers are all people with musical intelligence. Students who display great hand eye coordination, tend to move around, gesture and touch things are strong in body- kinesthetic intelligence. Professionals that use this intelligence are inventors, dancers, mimes, actors, surgeons, athletes and musicians. Students that are skilled at organizing, communicating, mediating, negotiating and have strong leadership skills are exhibiting interpersonal intelligence. ‘This intelligence is usually seen in such people as teachers, therapists, salespeople, counselors, politicians, religious leaders and business executives’( Nicholson 11). Students who are strong in intra personal intelligence enjoy working alone, have a strong sense of self and are confident. They may grow up to be brain researchers, religious leaders, psychiatrists or philosophers. Students who can ‘see the natural world from the larger perspective- an understanding of how nature interacts with civilization’(Nicholson 12) are exhibiting naturalist intelligence. They may become botanists, landscapers, naturalists, farmers or biologists. So how does one use multiple intelligences when only teaching English? The idea is to incorporate these intelligences into ones lesson plan through different activities. For example if you are doing a lesson on sight words you will reach the linguistic intelligent students by writing the words on sentence strips and introducing them. To include mathematical intelligence one would categorize the words by how many letters they each had. A spacial activity would be to have students write the words and draw a box around them to see the shape of the word. Spelling the words with their bodies or writing them in the air are kinesthetic activities. For a musical activity you could say the consonants loud and the vowels in a whisper. Any type of group work is an interpersonal activity (partners testing each other) and individual work is intra personal (journal writing using sight words)(Nicholson 32). Using a centers approach to teaching is a great way to include all the different intelligences. In this approach the teacher makes up various center that all focus the same general topic or main concept but focus on different intelligences. The students rotate through these center during the day or throughout the week. In this way all the intelligences are addressed and one can work with small groups of students.

By understanding and using Howard Gardner’s multiple intelligence theory, we, as teachers, can better serve our students by tapping into their natural intelligences and build on their areas of weakness. What makes a person intelligent? ‘...each intelligence has its own strengths and constraints’.(Smith). A better question is what intelligences do your students have?

Multiple Intelligences

In each class, there are many different students. Each of these students has a different way of learning. A teacher in an ESL classroom will need to respect the many ways students learn and develop lessons with a wide range of activities and exercises that address these different intelligences. 

Howard Gardner??s theory of multiple intelligences emphasizes 8 different styles of learning that encompass most people. As the teacher begins to understand the students in his/her class, they will begin to develop a sense of how each student learns and be able to tailor lessons to suit.

Word Smart

Students who are word smart learn best through verbal activities. Verbal activities are listening, reading, or speaking. To target these learners, a teacher may include discussions, worksheets, writing exercises, reading activities, story-telling, and word games. 

Number Smart

These students learn best by exploring patterns and relationships through activities such as problem solving, logical puzzles or games, making charts and graphs, following recipes, giving directions, or putting things in sequence. Teachers may wish to have students try to crack the code when discovering a language pattern by simply presenting them with examples as an introduction; have students practice sequencing a story or a dialogue; or they may present students with data from which they must draw conclusions and discuss possible explanations, ways to promote change etc. 

Picture Smart

Picture Smart students learn best by visualizing concepts. These students appreciate maps, pictures, videos, diagrams etc.. Teachers may use jigsaw puzzles, shapes, colour, and design. They may link vocabulary words with pictures or learn spelling through drawing the shape of the word. They may benefit from highlighting or drawing shapes around grammar elements of a sentence. Maybe the teacher will describe a scene, and have the students draw it (as a listening comprehension exercise), or make use of games such as Pictionary in the classroom.

Body Smart

Students who are Body Smart learn best by using their bodies. They enjoy acting in role-play activities or charades. They respond well to the Total Physical Response approach to learning that is present in some ESL classrooms. Anything hands-on or requiring movement is generally well received. Puppets, balls, and action songs are especially useful with young body smart learners. 

Music Smart

Music Smart students learn best through sound, music, and rhythm. Teachers may wish to use music in the classroom through singing songs or chants or reading rhythmic storybooks. For older learners, the teacher might bring in appropriate pop songs that complement the lesson material for students to listen to or learn to sing. As a writing exercise, the teacher may give students a small piece of music to which they must write their own lyrics. 

People Smart

These students learn best through doing things with others, cooperating and working in small or large groups, role-playing, having conversations, brainstorming, and other interactive activities. A teacher may wish to encourage students to compose and perform dialogues with a partner, or develop arguments and rebuttals in a debate. 

Self Smart

A Self Smart student learns best by working independently. A teacher may choose activities that meet the needs of these students such as journal writing, silent reading, story writing, or independent classroom work (worksheets, word-searches etc.).

Earth Smart

Earth Smart students learn best through activities connected to living things and natural phenomena. They are keen observers of wildlife and nature. They learn best through nature walks, examining plants and animals, nature experiments, and activities that focus on ecology. Some of these activities may be done in a focus on ecological language. However, generally ESL classes are confined to the four walls of the classroom. If a teacher has Earth Smart learners in the classroom, topics should be chosen with this in mind. The topic of a reading, listening, speaking, or writing exercise can be nature oriented. For example, children will respond well to imitating animal noises, labeling wildlife and describing their characteristics (which can be used in combination with concepts such as Can/Can??t as demonstrated in Unit 15 of this course). 

Multiple Intelligences

I’m sure that we all have had our fathers and mothers say ‘he has a gift for music’ or ‘he just loves helping animals and people’, at last it seems that scientists have heard them as well. The theory of multiple intelligences addresses this seemingly obvious need to recognize that we all have strong and weak points, and has taken it one step further into the realm of education. 

The theory of multiple intelligences states that every person on this planet possesses to some degree nine different types of intelligence. A map of the different kind of intelligences and what they are is on the next page (courtesy of M.I. smart).:

1.Verbal/linguistic 

2.Logical/mathematical 

3.Musical/rhythmic 4.Bodily/kinesthetic 

5.Visual/spatial

6.Naturalist

7.Intrapersonal

8.Interpersonal

9.Existential

What differs between us is the amount of each one. We may be great athletes, therefore we posses a large helping of bodily/kinesthetic intelligence, or we may be virtuoso musicians having a large portion of musical/rhythmic intelligence in our mental composition. Whatever our strong points are, we tend to orient our lives towards those tendencies. A mathematician or logical thinker might have some trouble thinking in the same terms as an existential. This influences our lives and the way we learn. 

The way we learn bears directly on our ability to receive the information given to us by our teachers, therefore as teachers we must be ultimately more aware of our student’s natural abilities. If a student is a musician and we wish to teach him a new verb tense, then perhaps the best way to do so would be in song, or to even have the student create a song of their own to help him study.

The methods used by TESOL teachers should be up to date and the theory of multiple intelligences is about as up to date as you can get. The ESA method (Engage Study Activate) is very close to getting there, but a method cannot get a teacher all the way. The real challenge behind this theory is that the teacher must now cater to students in a more personal way, by varying their methods of teaching to a point where everyone in class is benefited in turn. This is encouraged in the ESA method of teaching, but should be taken further still. 

An innovative way of teaching would be to hand out a standardized questionnaire to the students before teaching them, to find their most predominant way of thinking. Once a teacher has results they can prepare a course that incorporates the different kind of visual prompts and techniques that would appeal to the students. . The reduction of class size is a factor very much in consideration and has been so for a while now. Reducing class size is perhaps more feasible for private TESOL teachers, or in institutes where class size is small anyway, but to able to do so would enable the teacher to give a more personalized education and put into practice this kind of theory The practice of this theory in an actual classroom will also stimulate a greater interest of the teacher in his/her students, for the simple reason that getting to know them better will allow them to ascertain what methods work best with which student. This will also foment the interest of the student. A student that feels they are being taken personally into account will naturally feel more inclined to study and learn and even enjoy doing so. 

To summarize, the new wave of teachers beginning their careers and the ones already out there, must be ready to embrace this new theory of education. Everyone is capable of learning, it lies in the hands of the teachers to find which way is the best for each student. Whether we are at heart musicians, mathematicians, athletes, or any other kind of person, there is a more suitable and appropriate way of learning for each of us, our differences can be celebrated, and our way of thinking no longer considered inferior to another. As people, we can all get to the same place, just in different ways, that’s all.