The Application Of Multiple Intelligences Theory To English Reading Teaching In Senior High Schools

Reading is an important way of language input, and is also an important teaching content in National English Curriculum Standards for Common Senior High School. But as the current situation, the teaching of English reading in senior high schools has faced a lot of problems. Teachers pay more attention to explaining the language points, vocabularies and grammar knowledge, and ignore the development of students’ language using ability, which causes students to lose interest in English learning. Therefore, every teacher is faced with many common problems, that are how to organize English classroom teaching effectively, how to stimulate students’ reading interest and how to improve the students’ English reading skills and reading abilities. This article focuses on applying Multiple Intelligences(MI) theory to the teaching of English reading in senior high schools.In 1983, Howard Gardner put forward MI theory in his book Frames of Mind. He points out that the normal human beings have at least eight intelligences, including linguistic intelligence, logical-mathematical intelligence, spatial intelligence, bodily-kinesthetic intelligence, musical intelligence, interpersonal intelligence, intrapersonal intelligence and naturalist intelligence. MI theory emphasizes that teachers should respect each student’s intelligent characters and design more scientific and effective classroom activities in order to improve students’ multiple intelligences and promote their all-round development. This research takes the empirical research method to apply MI theory to English reading teaching in senior high schools. The major findings of the study are: applying MI theory to English reading teaching can arouse students’ interest in English reading and improve their reading proficiency.The thesis is made up of six chapters.Chapter one introduces the current situation of English reading teaching in senior high schools and the importance of English reading. After analyzing the problems existing in English reading teaching, the author puts forward the purpose and significance of the study.Chapter two is the literature review. The first part introduces the definition and features of MI theory; the second part describes the researches on MI theory abroad and in China.Chapter three is about the application of MI theory to the teaching of English reading. This chapter describes many English reading teaching methods which can promote the development of students’ multiple intelligences.Chapter four is the research design. 120 students from two classes of senior one in Longkou No.1 middle school were chosen as the subjects of the experiment. The experiment lasted for one semester, from September 2014 to December 2014. In the experimental class, students were taught by the methods based on multiple intelligences, while students in the control class were still taught by the traditional method. This chapter includes hypotheses, subjects, instruments, and the procedure of the research and data collection.Chapter five is experimental results and analysis. After collecting all of the data in the experiment, the author compares the teaching effect of traditional English reading teaching and English reading teaching based on multiple intelligences.Chapter six is conclusion and suggestion, in which the author puts forward the major findings, the implications of the study and limitations and suggestions for future research.