Application Of Multiple Intelligences In Senior High English Classes

Research on teaching methodology has been a significant task for many education experts and teachers. Meanwhile, many linguists and psychologists begin to focus their attention on the question why some students can learn a second language better than other students. Since the first teaching method, grammar-translation method, came into being, people have always been exploring the best ways for foreign language teaching over these years.Howard Gardner proposed eight different kinds of intelligences to explain a various range of potential in both children and adult. The multiple intelligences theory (MI theory) has given us a new perspective for our educational reform, especially in the aspect of English language teaching(ELT) in high schools. According to Gardner, people have not one but at least eight intelligences. MI theory stresses that everyone has a range of relatively independent intelligences, which show different combinations of individual intelligence. Gardner’s MI theory provides powerful support for differential teaching. English teaching in senior high is never an easy task for English teachers. MI theory provides a theoretical foundation for teachers to refer to. Based on MI theory, a new circle of revolution in education came about at the outset of this century. More and more students and teachers are benefiting from it. But English teachers often feel confused how they can apply the MI theory into their English language teaching practice to facilitate students’second language learning.In this situation, this thesis came into being. This thesis aims at applying MI theory into the actual practice in senior high English classes and finding out the answer to the question whether MI theory has any good effect on students’achievement in English. Some practical methods and activities are designed according to MI theory. Researches are done for a semester on the students of two classes in senior high school the author is teaching to find out the positive influence of MI theory on ELT. The author analyzes the data which has been collected and does some comparison.The results reveal that MI theory has a positive influence on improving students’achievement in English learning, at least, it does good for students to improve their interest in English. The study of the application of MI theory is meaningful and useful for both teachers and students.