A Case Study On Applying Multiple Intelligences Theory In English Classroom Activity Design In Senior High School

Multiple intelligences (MI) theory is a theory put forward by the Americanpsychologist Howard Gardner in1983in his book Frames of Mind: The Theory ofMultiple Intelligences. It claims that human beings’ intelligence has multipledimensions and each individual has his strength and weakness in intelligence. InEnglish teaching, it is essential to apply this theory in classroom activity designbecause it can arouse students’ interest and motivation in their learning. At the sametime, as the National English Curriculum emphasizes that teaching should face allstudents and respect every student’s individual characteristics, the MI theory meets theprinciples of the National English Curriculum to some extent. This thesis is a casestudy which aims at exploring the condition of applying MI theory in classroomactivity in a class of Senior High. To carry out the study, a questionnaire, classroomobservations and some interviews will be used. The questionnaire is designed to makeclear the current condition of classroom activity in this class and students’ opinion onclassroom activities. The author used SPSS to analyze the data of the questionnaire andfind out that in this class, the teacher seldom uses MI theory in classroom activities. Atthe same time, from the questionnaire we can find that the activities students welcomedin class are not used by teachers. From the classroom observations we could make theconclusion that the model of English class in this class is very traditional and the MItheory is seldom touched upon in the class. The teacher talks most of the time in classand students’ motivation in learning is very low. By analyzing the interviews withstudents and the teacher we can find that the teacher doesn’t have a clear understanding to MI theory so she doesn’t have the awareness to apply MI theory in her classroomactivity design. The classroom activities used in her English class are not diversifiedand students are not active in taking part in the classroom activities. Combining theresults of the researches with the conceptions of MI theory and theories of classroomactivities, the author will try to find the implications of the case study and make somesuggestions about applying MI theory in classroom activity design in Senior Highschool.