Multiple Intelligences Theory

The theory of multiple intelligences comes out of psychology and it was developed to show that human beings have different kinds of intellectual strengths and that these strengths are very important in how kids learn and how people represent things in their minds, and then how people use them in order to show what it is that they've understood.As a matter of fact, if we all had exactly the same kind of mind or only one kind of intelligence, then we could teach everybody the same thing in the same way and assess them in the same way. But people have very different kinds of minds, different kinds of strengths -- some people are good in thinking spatially, some in thinking language, others are very logical, other people need to be hands on and explore actively and try things out.

Among the intelligences I have picked are the Linguistic Intelligence and the Musical Intelligence.

I can say that most of my students have a high linguistic intelligence as they are fond of using language in every way possible.They retain, interpret and explain ideas using solely the English language.They are good at understanding the relationship between communication and meaning.Some of the activities I would suggest to these students include speaking about a given topic, edit a written piece of work, comment on a speech or write an ending to a story.

As to the musical intelligence, my students have so much of it as well. Songs and limericks are their favourites! Activities that I usually do with them include reading and joining in a song. Also, I ask them to listen to songs with gaps to fill in and then join in. I also use karaoke to get them singing their favourite songs. I have realized that most of the language they know comes from the songs they listen to in my class.

As to testing, I recall what my mentor used to tell me. He said , "We test to teach but it's not the other way round", and he was quite right. Assessing students with a linguistic intelligence would require asking them to interpret or paraphrase texts in a precis for example or lead a post-reading discussion of a text.As to the musical intelligence, I would ask them to fill in gaps in songs then join in the song after discussing its themes.Karaokes too prove a great tool to make students learn songs by heart and sing like their singers.

By El. Mohamed