Multiple Intelligence and Language

Paper Summary:

This paper suggests that the current models of teaching secondary languages, which emphasize the value of drills and memorization with standardized testing, are overly limited, especially in their failure to acknowledge the different kinds of intelligences that exist in the human population. It looks at how those teaching strategies that incorporate the principle of "multiple intelligences" allow each student to learn the same material in different ways. It shows how some students will be best served by learning material visually, others interpersonally, and how others are best served when musical or aural elements are introduced into the classroom.

From the Paper:

"The concept of multiple intelligences in some ways goes against much of many of the developments in the public schools over the last decades. While standardized tests in the form of IQ tests have been given to some people for years and older students have for decades taken exams such as the SAT to help them gain entrance into prestigious colleges and the MCAT to help them gain entrance into medical school. But the past decade has seen an increasing trend to test students at a young and younger age so that middle and elementary school students are now taking exams along with the older counterparts in high school and college. These exams in many ways undermine the entire concept behind multiple intelligence teaching by forcing each student to learn in a narrowly delineated way as Johnson (1997) suggests."

More papers on Multiple Intelligence and Language:

• Essay # 115521 : "Multiple Intelligences"
• Research Proposal # 68769 : "Multiple Intelligences"
• Essay # 64002 : "Gardner's Theory of Multiple Intelligences"

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