A Correlational Study Of Multiple Intelligences, Learning Style And English Achievement

As the learner-centered teaching is highly advocated in recent years, second language teaching puts much emphasis on language learners'characteristics. In the study of the factors that can affect the learners'learning a second language, the individual differences are one of the key issues that help teachers know students better and take proper teaching methods to provide what they need. Dr. Howard Gardner, professor of education at Harvard University, developed the theory of Multiple Intelligences in 1983, and proposed at least eight different intelligences to account for a broader range of human potential in children and adults. Gardner's theory of Multiple Intelligences just reflects the notion of respecting students'differences and adopting more flexible and individualized teaching methods so that students can be more confident and better learning results will be achieved. Learning styles pay attention to the individual learning process; while multiple intelligences pay more attention to the learning contents and relations between different subjects. Therefore, it is necessary to integrate these two concepts to improve the effect of learning. This thesis selected 133 freshmen in Hebei Normal University as the subjects. In this study, two questionnaires are distributed, namely, the Multiple Intelligences Inventory and Reid's Perceptual Learning Style Preference Survey. The statistical analysis employed are descriptive statistics and Pearson Correlation Analysis, so as to find out the general distributions and features of learning styles and multiple intelligences, the relationship between learning styles and multiple intelligences, between multiple intelligences and English achievement, between learning styles and English achievement.Based on the statistical analysis and exploration, this study draws the following conclusions:1. The English majors in normal schools show a variety of learning style preferences. Among them,individual, kinesthetic and tactile styles are the most preferred ones while group style is the least preferred. 2. The subjects are more comfortable with intrapersonal, interpersonal and linguistic intelligences, while naturalist and musical intelligences are the least weak ones.3. The eight intelligences except musical intelligence, are positively correlated with English achievement.4. Interpersonal intelligence is found negatively correlated with English achievement.5. None of the learning styles is found correlated with English achievement.This study will not only reflect the complete pictures of learning style preferences and multiple intelligences characteristics in normal schools, it can also raise the learning style and multiple intelligences awareness, bridge the gap between the instructors and the students, and explore individualized instructions that are compatible with the students so that individualization will be achieved in a real sense.