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

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