Author:r4 3ds
Taking a look at the history of language teaching and learning, one can recognize that the 19th century has been highlighted with a significant shift of focus in language education from teaching to learning. This change created an explosion of research aimed at investigating learner characteristics and language acquisition. Learners were paid more attention as the key element in language teaching and learning, and as a result, a plethora of studies emerged focusing on language learners’ different characteristics as well as examining the effect of these features on the ease and the speed of acquiring a second language.
According to Ellis (1985) second language (L2) learners are different. They learn with different speed and different results. There are many explanations for that issue. The general factors that influence second language learning are: age, aptitude and intelligence, cognitive style, attitudes, motivation and personality. In recent years, there has been a substantial amount of interest in individual differences among foreign language learners. Although there are many ways in which learners can vary, intelligence is often thought to be one of the most significant predictors of language learning success. According to Gardner’s (1983) theory of “multiple intelligences”, people vary in terms of eight types of intelligence, namely visual, verbal, mathematical, kinaesthetic, interpersonal, intrapersonal, naturalistic, and rhythmic intelligence. It has been said that each of these types of intelligence may have a bearing, not only on a student’s ability to learn a foreign language, but also on the teacher’s tendency to favour a given teaching method. Individuals differ from one another in their ability to understand complex ideas, to adapt effectively to the environment, to learn from experience, to engage in various forms of reasoning, to overcome obstacles by taking thought. Although these individual differences can be substantial, they are never entirely consistent: a given person's intellectual performance will vary on different occasions, in different domains, as judged by different criteria. Concepts of "intelligence" are attempts to clarify and organize this complex set of phenomena. In the area of second language learning as Spolsky (1989) states it is assumed that some people are gifted and they learn foreign languages with ease. It was observed that learners acquire a language with different results despite the fact that they are at the same age and are equally motivated. Intelligence is considered by many researchers as an important factor which can account for such differences. Accordingly, with regard to these points, this paper is an attempt to present a detailed picture of Gardner’s multiple
intelligences (MI) theory as well as some important related issues including the role of intelligence in different SLA approaches and finally the applications and implications of multiple intelligences to English language teaching.
II. DEFINITION AND CHARACTERIZATION OF INTELLIGENCE
Thanks to its important role in language learning, many researchers have proposed different definitions for intelligence. According to Moaafian (2008, cited in Hernandez et al., 2010) intelligence is a very general mental capability that, among other things, involves the ability to reason, plan, solve problems, comprehend complex ideas, learn quickly and learn from experience. It is not merely book learning, a narrow academic skill, or test-taking smarts. Rather, it reflects a broader and deeper capability for comprehending our surroundings- "catching on", "making sense" of things, or "figuring out" what to do. Chastain (1988, p. 43) refers to the definition of intelligence proposed by Wagner and Sternberg (1985). They discuss three conceptions of intelligence and the implications for education. The first, psychometric view equates intelligence with mental capacity and accepts the position that by means of carefully prepared tests educators can measure that mental ability and use the results to rank learners according to their ability. The second, the Piagetian view, defines intelligence in terms of stages of development based on maturity, experiences in the physical environment, expressed in the social environment, and the individual self-regulatory processes. The third, the information processing view, focuses on the way the brain represents and processes information. The first two views have to do with the brain’s capacity; the third deals with what the brain does during learning. Ellis (2008) points out that “intelligence, working memory, and language aptitude are clearly all closely linked. They all refer to cognitive capacities and the difference between their conceptualizations lies largely in how broad and how language-specific the terms are” (p. 649). Sternberg (1985, 2002) distinguishes three types of intelligence – analytical (the ability to analyze, compare, and evaluate), creative (the ability to produce novel solutions to problems), and practical (the capacity to adapt, to shape, and to select environments suited to one’s abilities). Gardner (1983, p.81) defines "intelligence as the ability to solve problems or to create fashion products that are valued within one or more cultural settings". This definition challenged the traditional psychological view of intelligence as a single capacity that drives logical and mathematical thought. In the same direction, Gardner (1993) described intelligence as a bio-psychological potential that could be influenced by experience, culture, and motivational factors. Elsewhere, Gardner (2009, p. 323) defines intelligence as “ a set of skills of problem-solving enabling the individual to resolve genuine problems or difficulties that he or she encounters…, to create an effective product, and … the potential for finding or creating problems – thereby laying the groundwork for the acquisition of new knowledge”.
III. MULTIPLE INTELLIGENCES (MI) THEORY
The theory of multiple intelligences was proposed by Howard Gardner in 1983. Gardner’s (1983) theory of multiple intelligences (MI) proposes a means to understanding the many ways in which human beings are intelligent; that is, how we process, learn, and remember information. Gardner (1983) states that while individuals are capable of processing information in at least seven different ways; each individual varies in the degree of skill possessed in each of these intelligences. He identifies seven categories of skills and abilities which he considers to be individual intelligences: linguistic, logical-mathematical, spatial, bodily-kinesthetic, musical, interpersonal and intrapersonal. He believes that these discrete abilities operate together in complex ways, and provide a much more comprehensive view of what constitutes human intelligence. Of course, later he added an eight and a ninth type to the list namely naturalistic and existential intelligences. Through the theory of multiple intelligences, we can seek to address students’ diverse intelligences by creating individualized learning environments. The main focus of this theory is on the content and products of learning. An interesting aspect of this theory is that intelligences that are different can still be easily identified through common life experiences (Gardner, 1993). Educators are always concerned about what educational methods can benefit the learners the most. Gardner’s (1993) Multiple Intelligences Theory is potentially one of them. Gardner claimed that educational methods should be created and adjusted to be more flexible for students who have different intellectual capacities, and should be redesigned and rearranged to use the multiple intelligences effectively so that those changes would benefit students, teachers and society. Multiple intelligence theory suggests that there is not just one concrete measure of intelligence and by implication a single way of teaching. Based on Gardner’s theory, Chapman and Freeman (1996) draw three implications. Firstly, intelligence can be taught or at least enhanced through teaching. Secondly, intelligences are changing throughout life. Thirdly, the existence of different intelligences that different learners possess results in different learning styles and different needs.
According to Armstrong (2009, p. 27) whether intelligence can develop depends upon three main factors. (1) Biological endowment—including hereditary or genetic factors and insults or injuries to the brain before, during, and after birth. (2) Personal life history—including experiences with parents, teachers, peers, friends, and others who awaken intelligences, keep them from developing, or actively repress them. (3) Cultural and historical background—including the time and place in which you were born and raised and the nature and state of cultural or historical developments in different domains. We can see the interaction of these factors in the life of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.
What follows is a brief description of each type of Gardner’s multiple intelligences theory provided mostly by Gardner (1983, 1993) and Champen and Freeman (1996). It should be noted that it is not assumed that each type of
intelligence is ever active in isolation. Gardner (1993) indeed suggests that during a learning episode it will be normal for a number of intelligences to be used together. In fact, he suggests that all intelligences are needed to function productively in society.
Author:r4i 3ds
r4 3ds
