Bollhagen, Andrew

Methods

July 27th, 2009

Questions for Sharing and Posting

Question #3:

I think that Multiple Intelligences has a place in every curriculum. In

explaining myself it will be helpful to address the question of how Multiple
Intelligences are different from the pedagogical methods we have discussed in the
class so far. Multiple Intelligences is not a teaching method. It is a model
describing the different ways in which people learn. Different people have different
intelligences and whatever may be one’s preferred method of language instruction,
one can engage a broad number of the intelligences. It would not be appropriate to
ask of a teacher if they prefer say, the Audiolingual Method or Multiple Intelligences
because the later is not a method distinct from the former.

The way in which I would integrate Multiple Intelligencesinto my curriculum

would, obviously, depend on the age and skill level of my students. It seems to me
that Total Physical Response is the method that has application to the broadest
demographic independent of skill and age and also that it lends itself to the
integration of Multiple Intelligences quite readily so I will discuss the way in which I
would integrate Multiple Intelligences in a TPR classroom setting.

The Total Physical Response Method attempts to create an environment

where language learning is brought off through several media. Advocates of this
approach see verbs as central to a language and thus teach them as the lynchpins
on which the rest of the language hangs. By having students actually do what the
verbs they are learning indicate, this method hopes to engage not just the
student’scapacity to handle language as a symbolic system, but as a living, active
entity which is interwoven with everything we do from day to day. Multiple
Intelligences identifies kinesthetic intelligence as one of the intelligences so it is
easy to see how TPR, which asks students to use their bodies as part of the
language learning process, lends itself to the engagement of the multiple
intelligences.

An example of an exercise I would do in a TPR setting that I feel engages a

broad range of the multiple intelligences would be a role playing exercise in which
students are assigned to play the roles of people in a restaurant. There would be
customers, hosts/hostesses, waiters, captains and perhaps even live musicians.
The room would be set up like the floor of a restaurant. Some students could be in
charge of designing menus with descriptions of the menu items or developing a play
list of music for the evening. This type of exercise could be seen as engaging a
number of the intelligences including spatial, musical, bodily kinesthetic and
interpersonal.

Not only would such role playing activities be useful in so far as it helps
students learn in accordance with their intelligences but, if the teacher allows the
students to select their own roles, he/she may be able to observe which students
select which role and make inferences regarding which students have which
intelligences. This information could be refined and become useful in the designing
of further activities.