Teacher Action Research 1 Running head: TEACHER ... - GSE

Teacher Action Research 1
Running head: TEACHER ACTION RESEARCH
Teacher Action Research Project
A Survey of Multiple Intelligences in a College Classroom
Melissa S. Ferro
EDCI 560
Methods for Teaching Foreign Languages
George Mason University
November 30, 2004

Teacher Action Research 2
Introduction
I am in my first year of teaching Spanish 101 at George Mason University. This is
a lower division course that is part of the language requirement for students seeking a
baccalaureate of arts degree. This semester, I am teaching one class that has twenty
students, most of whom are in their first year of college. My students have diverse
backgrounds and bring a variety of learning styles to the classroom. At present, there are
no special needs students or students who require special accommodations in the class.
Puzzlement
Earlier this semester, I read the article “Teaching and learning languages through
multiple intelligences” by Mary Ann Christison (1996). Christison believes that language
instructors should design lessons that appeal to all learners. She suggests that teachers
classify the activities that they frequently use in their language classes according to
Howard Gardner’s (1999) multiple intelligence theory (MI theory). In doing so, teachers
can identify what Christison calls “neglected intelligences” (1996, p.11) or those
intelligences that are not represented in classroom activities. Once language teachers
identify the weak areas in their lessons, they can offer more activities for those specific
thinking processes. While reading the article, I asked myself the following 3 questions:
1. Am I using activities in my class that appealed to the nine intelligences
2. How do my students rate each activity based on its usefulness in preparing them
for chapter exams
3. What are the strong and weak intelligences of the students in my classroom

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Methodology / Data Collection
First, I did an analysis of the activities that I have been using in the course for the
last 2 months. I classified each activity according the thinking processes or intelligences
that would apply. Then, I asked my students to rate the usefulness of each of these
activities based on how well they thought the activity prepared them for an exam
(Appendix 1). Because I wanted my students to rate the activities openly and honestly, I
did not require them to put their names on the Activity Survey. Lastly, I gave each
student a Multiple Intelligence Inventory Survey (Appendix 2) that I obtained from
Walter McKenzie’s surfaquarium web site. To ensure that the students understood that
the Multiple Intelligence Inventory is not an intelligence test, I explained the basics of
Gardner’s (1999) theory.
Data Analysis
Classification of Activities
Activity / Description
“Dos por Dos” a classroom game used to review
chapter material. The class is divided into 2
teams. Two students from each team are asked a
question. The first team to answer correctly earns
a point.
Worksheets: Find and Fix the Mistakes.
Students work individually. Teacher reviews
answers with the class
Review Worksheet
In class question and answer sessions on
grammar
Group Quizzes
Individual Quizzes
Individual Cultural Graphs and Diagrams
Group Work: Cultural Review Questions
Signature Grid Competitions: students circulate
the room using the target language to ask their
classmates to initial boxes on a grid if the material
in the box applies to them.
Individual Gustar Posters
Intelligences that Apply
Interpersonal, Kinesthetic, Visual and Verbal
Intrapersonal, Logical, Visual, Verbal
Intrapersonal, Visual
Interpersonal, Visual, Verbal, Logical
Interpersonal, Visual, Verbal
Visual, Intrapersonal
Logical, Visual, Intrapersonal, Naturalist,
Existential
Interpersonal, Logical, Visual, Verbal, Naturalist,
Existential
Interpersonal, Visual, Verbal, Kinesthetic,
Visual, Intrapersonal, Existential

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Overhead Transparency Listening Activities
Individual Writing Assignments
Visual, Verbal, Intrapersonal
Visual, Logical, Intrapersonal,
By classifying my classroom activities according to Gardner’s nine intelligences, I am
able to see that I offer substantial activities that appeal to visual, verbal, logical,
interpersonal, and intrapersonal intelligences. While I offer some activities that appeal to
kinesthetic, naturalist and existential intelligences, I do not offer any activities for
musical intelligence.
The Results of the Multiple Intelligence Inventory:
Visual Intelligence
Naturalist Intelligence
Number of Students
6
5
4
3
2
1
0
0-20 30-40 50-60 70-80 90-100
Number of Students
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
0
0-20 30-40 50-60 70-80 90-100
Intelligence Profile Score
Intelligence Profile Score
Verbal Intelligence
Intrapersonal Intelligence
7
7
Number of Students
6
5
4
3
2
1
Number of Students
6
5
4
3
2
1
0
0-20 30-40 50-60 70-80 90-100
0
0-20 30-40 50-60 70-80 90-100
Intelligence Profile Score
Intelligence Profile Score
Musical Intelligence
Logical Intelligence
Number of Students
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
0
0-20 30-40 50-60 70-80 90-100
Number of Students
9
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
0
0-20 30-40 50-60 70-80 90-100
Intelligence Profile Score
Intelligence Profile Score

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Existential Intelligence
Interpersonal Intelligence
Number of Students
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
Number of Students
6
5
4
3
2
1
0
0-20 30-40 50-60 70-80 90-100
0
0-20 30-40 50-60 70-80 90-100
Intelligence Profile Score
Intelligence Profile Score
Kinesthetic Intelligence
6
Number of Students
5
4
3
2
1
0
0-20 30-40 50-60 70-80 90-100
Intelligence Profile Score
These results are based on 16 responses. The information I extrapolated from the graphs
was surprising. I did not expect to find that so many of my students have strong
intrapersonal thinking processes. Generally, the students appear to be bored and
uninterested during the intrapersonal activities. Also, I did not expect to see such high
scores for existential and musical intelligences. These results reinforce Christison’s
(1996) suggestions for teachers to create activities for any intelligences that are not
currently represented in their lesson plans. For me, this means creating activities that will
appeal to the 13 students who scored greater than a 50 for musical intelligence.
The following chart shows the percentage of students who scored at or above a 70
for any given intelligence:

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% of Students with Intelligence Profile Score >= 70
80%
70%
60%
50%
40%
30%
20%
10%
0%
Naturalist
Intelligence
Musical
Intelligence
Logical
Intelligence
Existential
Intelligence
Interpersonal
Intelligence
Kinesthetic
Intelligence
Verbal
Intelligence
Intrapersonal
Intelligence
% of Students
Visual
Intelligence
From this data, I learn that there are equally high visual, kinesthetic and existential
learners in my classroom. Once again, I can see the high percentage of students with a
high score for musical intelligence compared to the percentage of students with high
verbal, logical and naturalist intelligences.
The Results of the Activities Survey
The results of the Activities Survey are based on 16 responses. In the next chart, I
show the percentage of students that rate each activity as being very useful or extremely
useful in preparing them for an exam.
% of Students Rating Activity Very or Extremely Useful
% of Students
100%
90%
80%
70%
60%
50%
40%
30%
20%
10%
0%
Dos Por Dos
Game
Find and Fix
Mistakes
Review
Worksheet
In class Q+A -
Grammar
Group
Quizzes
Individual
quizzes
Group Work:
culture
Individual
Work: culture
Signature Grid
Competitions
Individual
Gustar
Overhead
Transparency
Individual
Writing
It is interesting to note that almost 90% of my students found the individual writing
assignments so useful and that almost 80% of my students scored at or above a 70 for

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intrapersonal intelligence. The high percentage of intrapersonal learners is also evident in
the high percentage of students who thought that other intrapersonal activities (the find
and fix the mistakes worksheet and the review worksheet) were very beneficial for
preparing them for exams. What I did not expect to find is the low percentage (5%) of
students who found the signature grid competitions very or extremely useful. This
activity uses kinesthetic, visual, verbal and interpersonal intelligences. The students are
able to move around the classroom as they interact with each other in the target language.
Since the students always seem to enjoy this activity, I thought the majority of the class
would rate it very or extremely useful. I also anticipated that more than 40% of the
students would find both the group quizzes and the individual quizzes very or extremely
useful in preparing them for the exams. Lastly, I was pleased to learn that 50% of the
students rated 7 of the 12 activities as very / extremely useful.
Conclusion
I developed this puzzlement because I wanted to see if and how I could apply MI
theory to my classroom. While I found MI theory to be very practical, I understand that
there are factors other than a student’s strong or weak intelligences that can influence
his/her opinion of an activity. For example, Krashen’s (1982) affective filter hypothesis
says that any stress a language learner experiences in the classroom can greatly affect
his/her motivation to take risks using the target language. Interpersonal activities can
raise these affective filters since the students may become stressed or nervous when
asked to use only the target language. While my students may prefer the intrapersonal
activities (when their affective filters are low), I hope to show them that they can greatly
benefit from the full array of activities that we use in the classroom. My goal is to

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continue to improve the learning environment so that my students feel comfortable
enough to take risks using the target language.
To provide the best possible learning environment includes providing a variety of
activities that will apply to all nine intelligences. As a result of this project, I am creating
activities that include musical intelligence in a number of my lesson plans. Also, I try to
make connections between an activity and the intelligences that may apply. For example,
I try to point out natural resources or artifacts when discussing a particular country with
the class or I ask questions that require the students to think about how and why people
from other cultures may have different perspectives than they do. Lastly, I am reconsidering
the use of quizzes since there are other ways to make assessments that might
be more effective.
Unfortunately, this semester is almost over. In January, I will have two new
classes with two new groups of diverse learners. I believe that I can enhance the learning
experience of my students by showing them the benefits of using all nine intelligences in
our classroom activities. Next semester, I plan to give the Multiple Intelligence
Inventory to my students within the first few weeks of class so that I can spend a good
portion of the semester using what I learned in this project.

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References
Christison, M.A. (1996, Autumn). Teaching and learning languages through multiple
intelligences. TESOL Journal, 10-14.
Gardner, H. (1999). Intelligence reframed: Multiple intelligences for the 21 st century.
New York: Basic Books.
Krashen, S. (1982). Principles and practice in second language acquisition. Oxford,
England: Pergamon Press.
McKenzie, W. (1999). Multiple intelligence survey. Retrieved November 16, 2004 from
http://surfaquarium.com/mi/inventory.htm