By Julian Moreno (One of my homeworks

Sometimes teachers wonder why do some of their students learn so fast? And why some others don’t? In this article you will find many answers for those questions because in this case everybody has a “different world” inside their minds but the big questions are how would you teach an English class for foreign students that has very smart ones? Imagine that you are the teacher of these students: Picasso, Einstein, Darwin, Diego Maradona, J.K Rowling, Gandhi, Justin Timberlake, and Barack Obama (If you ask yourself what are they doing here you will find the answer later)? But that is not the challenge; the challenge is to know how would you do to teach them and how are they going to learn?.
For much of in world history the way of learning in some students’ lives have affected them in a good or in a bad way for example, some students because have studied what they like have succeed for example William Wordsworth who did really well at school his teachers have something that helped him and were techniques to deal with an amazing student at that time and one of the greatest English poets of all times on the other hand we have another great man in history Thomas Edison who was so smart that his teachers were not allow to answer all his questions so they decided to treat him in a bad way making him left school; clearly we need to know how our students are learning in order to help them in their development, who knows if we as teacher have the next great mind in our desk waiting to be found and helped to succeed?
Another example could be Famous people nowadays, ages doesn’t matter in this example we can see Mile Cirus, Justin Bieber, Jim Carrey, Arnold Schwarzenegger, succeeding in what they do but have you wonder if they attend school? If so what made them to give up? Or not to go? Reasons are many but what make succeed people is to do what they like to do and the key is how they learn doing those things.
In ancient time didn’t matter the way you learnt or how comfortable you felt by learning, for example in ancient Rome where the teachers were difficult; even in ancient Greece, many of the most famous philosophers learnt in that way but what made it special???
Many of these people (inventors, physicists, musicians, philosophers and more) made many people think about the way some students have learnt through time; one of the field that called many people’s attention is teaching English, especially as second language acquisition. Likes and dislikes are full involved in this field and also these are issues that we have since we are born because in our conception mom’s and dad’s genes are going to define many things in you and one of them is the way you are going to learn things in an easier and more comfortable way.
To begin with I would like to write about a very nice theory that I have found (Checkley 1-3), this article is going to be interesting for all those who are planning to become teachers, especially those ones who would like to teach English to students of other languages or ESL. I found this theory by studying or by just looking something “interesting” to read, when I saw “The Multiple Intelligence theory” I though well we have many ways to think, but I was not sure, then I give my second step that was to read about it, and I got impressed because I didn’t imagine that teaching could go beyond the four walls of the classroom.
Going deeper I will like to give a short definition of intelligence, Howard Gardner, teacher at Harvard University and also the one who invented this theory defines in his book Frames of mind: the theory of multiple intelligences as “the ability to solve problems or to create products that are valued within one or more cultural settings” (Gardner 30-31) I share his point because everybody has this capacity and all of us can develop it but the question is why multiples?
This is an “old idea” as he says but it time has come, teachers need to know this in order to improve their classes, especially for those ones who teach ESL. They are called multiple because we have nine different intelligences, they are: Existentialist, interpersonal, intrapersonal, body kinesthetic, musical rhythm, verbal linguistic, logical mathematical, naturalist, and visual spatial.
It is very important to know about the different multiple intelligences in order to achieve our goals as teachers and our students goals, because this is going to be the way in which we (students and teachers) are going to enjoy our learning process. Now I would like to write a little bit about them:
The first one is the existentialist intelligence is the ability to be sensitive or to have the capacity of, these are the people like philosophers, and many important people have had this intelligence for example: Gandhi, even when he lived, he said that an Existentialist intelligence was necessary, this is a moral one. Also I added this citation that I found interesting in the article called Multiple intelligence for every classroom and says that the human response to being alive in all ways (Gardner is still not satisfied that he has enough physiological brain evidence to conclusively establish this as an intelligence) (Pokey) This one is kind of difficult to understand because even the same Howard Gardner hasn’t gone deeper; the existentialist is a new intelligence that needs to be studied more.
Moving on we have the interpersonal that is the one that help us to be involved with other people and to understand their desires, intentions, and motivations. In his book Frames of Mind Howard Gardner defines this intelligence “as a piece” and according to the article Howard Gardner, multiple intelligences and education is because “their close association in most cultures, they are often linked together. However, he still argues that it makes sense to think of two forms of personal intelligence. Gardner claimed that the seven intelligences rarely operate independently. They are used at the same time and tend to complement each other as people develop skills or solve problems (Smith)” In This one we can see it most of the time with some famous artist, as Lady Gaga or political leaders Barack Obama, these kind of people all the time are involved with others they cannot be in their own little world because they need someone beside them to help them, to give them ideas or to make them feel motivated that most of time and regarding this example are fans the ones who make them work and succeed.
Another one is the intrapersonal, is the one that help us to know ourselves, our feelings, our fears, and our motivations, most of the time are people that can work with goals and these people have very clear to where they want to go in the long road of life. We can see in this intelligence people like movies directors such as Steven Spielberg, we also can see inventors such us Thomas Edison, or famous writers for examples J.K Rowling or Stephenie Meyer. As a citation for this one I looked in the article called Multiple intelligence theory by Howard Gardner (You can look this citation at the end of the document in the references page) that add more information regarding intrapersonal intelligence as “If you are intrapersonal then you are really good at knowing how you are feeling and how you may react to certain situations in the near future.
If you are intrapersonal you are pretty independent and are happy spending time alone. You may find it easier to learn by thinking and working quietly on your own somewhere.” (You can look for it in the interpersonal section)
Now we move to a very different one; many classrooms have very hyperactive students and most of the time teachers don’t know what to do with these kinds of students no regarding ages we see hyper people at any ages, pay attention! those teacher who do not understand this students, is a good idea to let them be like that but is our job to design activities for those and to try to involve all kind of learners, with this I want to write about the body kinesthetic one, this is when learners enjoy having physical experiences while they learn also doing by themselves is another characteristic of them, they are also called body smart, they enjoy using their bodies to learn examples of these people can be David Beckham, Serene Williams, Michael Jordan, most of the time are athletes the ones with this kind of learning but not always we also have dancers like Usher, Justin Timberlake, they are singers but their performances are most of the time physical. Another important detail about them is the fact that they can develop some skills related with listening, and with sounds for example we have the most famous deaf in world history Ludwig Van Beethoven, we couldn’t listen but what made him a very smart person in this field? When he felt sad, all those emotions made him played the piano and he started to show all those feeling though the music, breaking sounds into pieces allowed Beethoven create his beautiful songs that we listen nowadays.
Also we have the musical intelligence, and probably this is going to be one of the most enjoyable for many students who love music because is one that we practice and most important most of us are good in this one, musical intelligence is the learning style in which songs, rhythms, music, and sounds are fully involved with your learning, that’s why you as teacher most of the time have students that are all the time sitting on their desks but they have a pencil or pen in their hands and they enjoy making noise with it, also there are many people with this intelligence such as Jay-Z, Eminem that have a plus because they are not just singers if not producers and those ones are more involve with the musical intelligence because they go beyond from just singing.
Moving on to the “noisy one” the verbal linguistic intelligence, this one is probably students that enjoy reading, writing, talking (of course) and listening have more develop but one important point is that they enjoy all this part of English by transferring them in a spoken way, they are fast learners and are those who learn to speak English very fast. Very talkative people like T.V. hosts have this intelligence such as Ryan Seacrest, Mario Lopez and others.
Now is the turn of the famous “nerdish people” all the time they are and were rejected by many people, these people LOVE puzzles, love to experiment, they also love logical things and these students are the ones that most of the time know more than the teacher, and some teachers do not answer their questions correctly because this people are good especially with number but they are not good in English, is a matter of brain lateralization. In class we can see these student most of the time isolated, enjoying doing exercises, and not specifically physical ones, they are very clever students that enjoy to study, most of the time they are not that good in social lifestyle and they don’t care about it, well this are the logical mathematical ones, students are fully involve with mechanical things, they know how things work easily; now that we live in a high-tech world these students are the ones who enjoy computers, they have a well left side of the brain they are very logical.
Talking about plants and be aware of the nature these are the naturalistic students; they share many characteristic with the kinesthetic ones because they love to do thing physically, they are very practical, they love to do activities outdoors but the only thing that distinguish them is that they love to involve those activities with nature and with animals, most of the time these students learn better when they are outside in a nice environment and most important playing with plants and animals. These students also and most of the time are vegetarians, they are what we call a green thinker. Also they are trip lovers, as I said before they are so alike to the kinesthetic ones. Some good examples of this kind of students are Marco polo who loved to travel a lot, Christopher Columbus another who like to know and going to many places, then we have Darwin, who like to study plants and Animals, even he is worldwide known because of that. For example if we as teachers want to help to this students, we are going to imagine that we have one student that is ESL, he/she is this kind of student (Naturalistic) and he/she wants to learn vocabulary, what we can do in this case is start talking about animals, how to describe them, or for example we can show them pictures of plants and teach him/her colors, shapes and more.
I don’t know if you have seen people who like colors, and they play with them so naturally than they create many beautiful paints, these people are the ones that Howard Gardner call visual spatial, in this one students tend to be very observes, to a degree that sometimes they become artist for example Picasso or Da Vinci. They have something in common with the mathematical ones, they like puzzles or jigsaws but with the difference that they like to have pictures on them; every time you see a student doing little draws in his or her notebook don’t punish him, just try to think of activities that might help him or her in his or her development.
This is just a little taste of the amazing world of the multiple intelligences; each one of them have amazing things that in this tiny document I have missed but what I wanted to do was to let you know future teacher, student, or just reader that, we have many ways to learn most of the time we ask to ourselves why do I learn so slow? Or why do I learn so fast? Probably now that you have read this article you can find your answer.
In brief, Multiple Intelligences Theory is helping nowadays many teachers and not just ESL ones, and even students because teacher now are more conscious about what they are doing inside the classroom. These intelligences are very important to teachers because are useful tools that make easer the learning process in your students, it is going to be easy to achieve your lesson plan’s goals and also your personal ones. Having this kind of knowledge is very helpful for your classes because you are inside your students way to think and students are finding themselves in a world where everyone has a different way to learn.
In addition, to make a contrast between these descriptions and today’s situation, I think that the current system of education in my country, El Salvador (because I don’t know how it works in the United States) needs these in all the ways of teaching because students are going to learn easier and of course the environment inside the classes is going to be better. We lack many resources that make this attempt as a “real challenge” teachers creativity is also inside this game, because it is going to be your imagination regarding activities, adequate them into your students according to their intelligence, as the same and only Albert Einstein said once “Imagination is more important than knowledge”
If I divide how would benefit applying these theory into El Salvador’s educational system I would say that first, in Elementary, many students are going to be benefit because creativity in them is an essential part in that rite of passages, teachers will detect and help them to define their likes and dislikes but what matter is that those likes and dislikes are going to be attached to the learning style that they are going to have, it might sound as a huge challenge but we know that in this stage the children learning process is very critical.
Secondly in school and high school, I’d say that teachers should be working in developing those abilities and skills plus putting them into practice, now at this stage the student has defined what are his/her preferences and we can help them to maintain their perspective.
Lastly, in higher education, as teachers we should encourage the students to do more or to go beyond what they have been doing before. Here is where it gets complicated because teachers must adequate their teaching techniques not only to their preferences if not to their ages, they are not kids anymore, teachers should think to make the learning process more challenging for them but that doesn’t mean that they are going to create a more difficult environment if not, to go a higher step in their intelligences by applying the rights methods and techniques and to making some modification in their lesson plans (think more to who is your class for? And then apply the right activities to your class.)
Now we can notice that is a big change that should be made in El Salvador’s educational system, and with this reading I hope to dare you as teacher to build a very nice environment for your students and to include all these intelligences in your lesson plans especially in the activities that are going to make your students enjoy the learning process and to finish with, I would like to take the words from the same creator of this theory Howard Gardner to let you know how important could be a text like this one but before that You thought that teaching was easy? I don’t think so.
“Over time and cultures, the most robust and most effective form of communication is the creation of powerful narratives” Howard Gardner
REFERENCES
Checkley, Kathy. “Educational Leadership.” (1997): 1-8.
Gardner, Howard. Frames of Mind: The Theory of the Multiple Intelligences. 2nd ed. 2004. Print.
“Http://www.multipleintelligencetheory.co.uk/index.aspx.” Newsgroup. Web. 20 June 2011.
McCoog, Ian J. “The Existential Learner.” (2010). Web. 24 June 2011.
Smith, Mark K. (2002, 2008) ‘Howard Gardner and multiple intelligences’, the encyclopedia of informal education
Standford, Pokey. “Multiple Intelligence for Every Classroom.” (2003).