Learning Styles and Multiple Intelligences

In the following text you will find a brief idea of what Learning Styles and Multiple Intelligences are and how I would carry them out in a foreign language classroom.

What?

Multiple Intelligences is a model out of a variety of learning styles models that have been proposed in general education and have been applied to language education.

According to Dr. Gardner intelligence is defined as follows:
“Intelligence is the capacity to do something useful in the society in which we live. Intelligence is the ability to respond successfully to new situations and the capacity to learn from one’s past experiences.” And he proposes eight different intelligences:
- Visual
- Linguistic
- Logical
- Naturalistic
- Interpersonal
- Intrapersonal
- Musical
- Kinesthetic

Moreover, MI is an approach to teaching that focuses on learning differences between learners and the need to recognize learner differences in teaching.

According to Brown (2002, p.6) Learning Styles “are ways of remembering thoughts and ideas and of practicing skills.” Learners, according to this model, can be categorized into three sensory styles: visual, auditory and kinesthetic.


So what? Advantages and Disadvantages

Advantages:
1- Learners are viewed as possessing individual learning styles, preferences or intelligences. Accordingly, students are not taken into account as a homogeneous mass; on the contrary, students have--innate--talents, gifts and potentials to be enhanced.
2- It takes into account the huge range of human potential in children as well as in adults.
3- Both, Learning Styles and Multiple Intelligences, explore what Luis Carlos Restrepo said what teachers should be:--escultores de sensibilidades--sculptor of sensibilities, formers, educators, and not merely knowledge givers.
4- They both, Learning Styles and MI correlate to enhance on one hand, the learners’ differences, in terms of their learning style and processes; and on the other hand of personality, making aware the learners of what careers or studies they should follow, therefore, strengthening learners’ self-awareness and self-esteem.
5- When the content is embedded in the intelligence frame (one or several intelligences), students will learn most quickly.
6- MI aims at making the language learner a better designer of his/her own learning experiences.

Disadvantages:
1- The disadvantages come from teachers’ performance and curricula design. If teachers do not understand, master and commit with MI’s theory, they will not be able to design and perform the variety of multisensorial activities needed to address each type of intelligence.
2- Moreover, in this approach (MI) teachers have to become in short period of time lesson’s designers, activities’ analysts, and curricula developers.


Now what? What can I do as teacher?

As Foreign Language Teacher, I consider that both, Multiple Intelligences Theory and Learning Styles could be integrated to perform better courses; because language could be integrated with music, kinesthetic activity, and interpersonal relationship and so on.

Moreover, classes would not be bored, repetitive or monotonous because we could teach the foreign language through other means, like music, dance, games, etc.


Now then, as teacher, I have to know first, by means of a diagnostic test, what are the primary intelligences and learning styles of my students. Then, once identified how they learn better, I would design and apply tasks that embed content with a particular or several type of intelligences.

However, to perform a real diagnostic test, it would take too much time. In addiction, it would demand an individual pursuit; a curriculum design; and an institution’s ideology to keep tracking on the evolution of each student. There must be a cross-curricular approach to teaching, in which all teachers are involved and committed in the same task (discovering and enhancing the students’ intelligences), not only the language teacher.