Multiple intelligences

The second session of our English Didactics classes was devoted to studying the theory of Multiple Intelligences which was proposed and carried out by the American psychologist Howard Gardner in 1983.

As a starting point, we made a brainstorming about the concept of  "intelligence" and its wide range of meanings and definitions. I totally agree with the following sentence: "Intelligence is more than solving problems, the intelligence allows us to survive in our changing world, to perceive, to find solutions and alternatives, to retain knowledge about our environment, to acquire skills, to communicate among people and to make wise decisions". 

The first idea I may deduce is that intelligence is not just a general "thing" or factor. Our brain areas are divided according to different skills and abilities. Our mental faculties work and adapt themselves to different contexts. In the power point Iñaki showed us some possible situacions and how we could react to them, how the brain gets involved in a context.  

We have evidence about multiple intelligences exist, according to Gardner's theory.

Howard Gardner identified eight basic intelligences.

 His theory states that human beings have several ways of learning and processing information and these methods are relatively independent of one another. So the "umbrella term" intelligence is divided into various specific modalities, rather than seeing it as a dominated by a single general ability. Gardner argues that there are a wide range of cognitive abilties with weak correlations among them.

The eight intelligences are the following

• Linguistic
• Logical-mathematical
• Spatial/Visual
• Bodily/Kinesthetic
• Musical
• Interpersonal
• Intrapersonal
• Naturalistic

In order to understand his formulation succesfully, we have to take into account than all children don`t learn in the same way. Since we were born, we have been receiving different stimuli from our environment, our real life. Some of these stimuli may exert more influence in some children than others. So that, if we have reinforced some areas with constant stimuli, it is quite possible that in the future we will have developed some skills deeply. For example, a child who is receiving linguistic stimuli in a second language every day, he/she may be a future bilingual speaker (e.g. English and Spanish or French and Spanish). A child who has grown up in a famiy where musical stimuli are quite present has more possibilities to reinforce that area in her/his adult life. In all these cases, the fact that one child has more abilites in one field does not necessarily mean than he/she is more intelligent than other child. As an instance, a child who learns to multilply easily is not necessarily more intelligent than a child who has more difficulty on this task. The child who takes more time to master multiplication: a) may best learn to multiply through a different approach; b) may stand out in another field outside mathematics such as language or geography.

The main idea is that all students don`t learn in the same way. As a future teacher, I liked the idea that we have to adapt our teaching methods to the different necessities and ways of learnig. We are going to teach to a heterogeneus group. The next aim is to reach that the predominant intelligence exert its good influence to the rest of intelligences (act like a bridge with the rest of intelligence, and establish a connection). And above all, we should be glad about working with variety and a dynamic reality.  

Our main objective is to MAXIMIZE the academic success and learn to work in DIVERSITY 

Every people has something which makes him/her special, particular. So, the idea of RESPECT the diversity is quite relevant.  

And not just the fact that children learn, but we can IMPROVE ourselves as professionals, by changing and experimenting with new methods.

All intelligences must interfere in the process. Children have ALL intelligences, but they need to develope them in a successful way.We ought not to forget the motto "we all are intelligent in many and different ways". The focus is to observe each student, to try to get feedback in class. In our subject, all intelligences make the good combination to learn english. In other words, each one may contribute to our better adquisition of the language. Now I further explain in which consist each intelligence, and I will present our power point.


CLASSIFICATION OF INTELLIGENCES

LOGICAL-MATHEMATICAL	Logic, abstractions, reasoning, numbers and critical thinking.
LINGUISTIC	Words, spoken or written. People who is good at reading, writing, telling stories and memorizing words
SPATIAL/VISUAL	Spatial judgement and ability to visualize with the mind’s eye.
BODILY/KINESTHETIC	Physical activities such as sports, dance, acting and making things. Control of one’s bodily  motions.
MUSICAL	Sensitivity to sounds, rhythms, tones, and music. Ability to sing, play musical instruments or compose music.
INTERPERSONAL	This area has to do with interaction with others, empathy, social abilities, cooperation in the group, teamwork.
INTRAPERSONAL	Introspective and self-reflective capacities. To have a deep understanding of the self, what makes you unique.
NATURALISTIC	Relate information to our natural surroundings. Applied knowledge of nature.

When we work with MI a basic idea is respect and COOPERATIVE WORK

We have to get FEEDBACK from the student. In our case, as a future English teachers, verbal or linguistic intelligence is not the only area we can use to achieve students to acquire a foreign language better. We may employ activities, resources and material from all the eight intelligences which are proposed. For example, we can learn it by working the musical intelligence through songs or poems; we can learn English watching films or performances (bodily intelligence); we can learn better through conceptual maps or images, pictures (spatial/visual) and so on. A key words I will bear on mind during my professional activity is CREATIVITY, IMAGINATION, INNOVATION and MOTIVATION to get student's attention.