Lesson 1: Teaching English to young learners

Multiple Intelligence Theory and Foreign Language Learning: A Brain-based

Perspective
Howard Gardner's multiple intelligences theory (MIT) (1983,1999) is an important
contribution to cognitive science and constitutes a learner-based philosophy which is "an
increasingly popular approach to characterizing the ways in which learners are unique
and to developing instruction to respond to this uniqueness" (Richards & Rodgers, 2001:
123).
MIT is a rationalist model that describes nine different intelligences. It has evolved in
response to the need to reach a better understanding of how cognitive individual
differences can be addressed and developed in the classroom.
Gardner (1999) and his research associates identified:
• Mathematical-Logical
• Verbal-Linguistic
• Musical-Rhythmic,
• Bodily-Kinaesthetic
• Interpersonal
• Intrapersonal
• Visual-Spatial
• Naturalist
• Existential Intelligences.
The following criteria have been used in MIT to identify an intelligence: it "entails the
ability to solve problems", it involves a "biological proclivity", it has "an identifiable
neurological core operation or set of operations" and it is "susceptible to encoding in a
symbol system ... which captures and conveys important forms of information" (Gardner
1999: 15-16).
The different intelligences are of neutral value; none of them is considered superior to the
others. In their basic form, they are present to some extent in everyone, although a person
will generally be more talented in some than in others. Each of these frames is
autonomous, changeable, and trainable (Armstrong, 1999) and they interact to
facilitate the solution of daily problems.

Multiple Intelligences and Learning

Learner diversity
Traditionally, whether in an explicit or implicit manner, many learning contexts have
been organized and many teachers have taught as if al1 learners were the same. One of
the most significant advances in education in the last decades of the twentieth century has
come from a considerable amount of research done in the area of learning styles which
recognizes that the students in our classrooms have greatly different learning profiles.
Reid (1999: 301) lists some of the dimensions which have been investigated in the area
of:
• Language Learning
• Multiple Intelligences
• Perceptual Learning Styles
• Field Dependence/Independence
• Analytic/Global Learning Styles
• Reflective / Impulsive Learning Styles
Benefits of increasing learners' awareness of their own learning styles:
• Higher interest and motivation in the learning process
• Increased student responsibility for their own learning
• Greater classroom community.
These are affective changes, and the changes have resulted in more effective learning
1.2. The holistic nature of learners
Gardner's cognitive model proposes that human beings are multidimensional subjects that
need to develop not only their more cognitive capacities but also other abilities as, for
example, the physical, artistic, and spiritual.
Traditionally, leaming has often been considered only a cognitive activity, but if we take
brain science into account, this consideration is inaccurate and educationally and
socially problematic.
Mainstream educational institutions "have focused so intently on the cognitive and have
limited themselves so completely to 'educating from the neck up' that this narrowness is
resulting in serious social consequences".
1.3. Teachability of intelligences
Neuroscience explains that the human brain is a neurally distributed processor where
neurons interact and knowledge depends on the connections or synapses of these units.
A newborn has all the neurons he or she will have but only a small proportion of the
synapses needed in adulthood. These are formed after birth and their creation is mainly
driven by experience.
Learning is the result of strengthening connections in the brain's neural network. The
more a pattern is activated, the stronger the connections will become.
MIT is a dynarnic construct that understands intelligences as tools that are changeable
and trainable. Thus, Gardner's model of multiple intelligences is a reaction against a
conservative and totally biologically driven view which would encourage students to see
intelligence as fixed and which could therefore make putting out special effort to achieve
academic goals seen not worthwhile.
1.4. Motivation and stimulus appraisal
Universally considered vital for learning, motivation is a complex construct which
depends to a great degree on the way we evaluate the multiple stimuli we receive in
relation to a specific context.
The stimulus appraisal concept connects with and provides support for MIT at various
points. Learning activities which are varied so that at least some of them relate to the
learner's strengths will be more likely to be appraised positively because they will be more
comfortable and thus more pleasant, they will be within the learner's coping ability, and
they will certainly be more compatible with his or her self-concept.
For example, learners with high visual-spatial intelligence who do an activity requiring
them to draw pictures of four things that are important to them and then in the foreign
language ask each other about their drawings would probably appraise the activity in a
favourable way and therefore their motivation towards the activity and the context in
which it is carried out would be increased.
1.5. Language aptitude
Good second language speakers are often considered to be talented people with special
verbal abilities who possess more than one code to understand and acquire knowledge in
order to use it in new situations
Although most individuals are capable of learning a second language to some degree of
competence, some leamers are better equipped for the second language learning task than
others. In Gardner's scheme, the verbal-linguistic intelligence does not make direct
reference to second language learning
However, there seems to be a very plausible link as people with a high verbal- linguistic
intelligence are those that tend to think in words and that have the ability to use language
effectively both orally and in writing, that is to say, those who have a high level of
sensitivity to sounds or phonology, sentence structure or syntax, meaning or semantics
and illocutionary force or pragmatics.
Frames for language teaching
Language leaming tasks can be developed around different types of intelligences. For
instance, an activity such as that of writing the lyrics of a song implies the use of linguistic
and musical intelligences. In a role-play where leamers may need to express their feelings
while being considerate of the feelings of others, linguistic, intrapersonal and
interpersonal talents are needed. In a task where leamers need to mime the title of a film
for others to guess, the bodily- kinaesthetic and interpersonal abilities are brought into
play.
MIT is an excellent tool to enable teachers to plan attractive ways to provide leamers with
language leaming practice. Within this cognitive model, "language is not seen as limited
to a 'linguistics’ perspective but encompasses al1 aspects of communication".
The MIT instructional perspective proposes that language leaming, that is to say,
developing leamers' verbal linguistic intelligence in a foreign second language, can be
favoured by using a variety of leaming tasks which cal1 upon diverse intelligences. The
teacher offers a choice of tasks, not to teach to specific intelligences but to give learners
the opportunity of apprehending information in their preferred way, as well as to promote
the development of their other intelligences. We will now consider briefly how the verbal
linguistic intelligence involved in foreign second language learning can be supported by
the other intelligence frameworks developed by Gardner.

Gardner‘s Intelligences