Multiple Intelligence (MI) Theory

This study sought to navigate multiple intelligence (MI) theory in the First Friend Series with the tourism English courses. To comply with the objective, 15 teachers were asked to uncover their perceptions of MI theory and its application in their classes. The secondary aim of this study was to probe tourism learners’ preferred intelligence types concerning different kinds of intelligence provided in the textbooks. To do this, 42 tourism students were asked to fill out the MI inventory developed by Christison (1996). The findings indicated that the textbook series dominantly represented verbal/linguistic and special/visual linguistic intelligence types. In addition, the most preferred intelligence types were interpersonal, logical-mathematical, musical, and special-visual, respectively. However, the least intelligence types were naturalistic and bodily-kinesthetic. The findings revealed that female learners displayed higher mean rank in answering the MI inventory, but the difference between the male and female learners in their MI type was not significant. Categorizing data obtained from teachers’ interviews (N= 15) showed that MI brings positive outcomes related to teaching practices and the learners’ learning. Teachers reported positive attitudes towards considering MI theory in teaching and applying it in their classes. The findings have implications for the tourism students, English for specific courses, and language policy makers.

In this study we try to investigate the extent to which Multiple Intelligences Theory (MI),is reflected in the designed ESP textbooks for high school students.For this aim, a Multiple Intelligences checklist developed by Razmjoo and Jozhaghi (2010),was used to calculate the frequencies and percentages of occurrence of each type of intelligences reflected through various activities in these selected ESP textbooks. And also Christison’s (1996,1999) young adults’ questionnaire was chosen for determining MI profile of 12th grade ESP learners who, those textbooks that are going to be studied in this research,were determined for them at school.The results of careful analysis of these textbooks’ tasks revealed that they mostly provided activities in the light of verbal/linguistic and visual/spatial intelligences.The least dominant intelligences were intrapersonal and naturalist intelligence types and no example of the naturalist intelligence was found in these course books’ activities.The results of the study also revealed variation of students’ and course books’ MI profiles. As contrasted with the course books’ MI profile,a balanced distribution of all types of intelligences with varying degrees, were perceived among the students.Verbal intelligence was represented in most activities which is the least preferred by the students,which is followed by logical intelligence.While Bodily/Kinesthetic, Natural and Musical intelligence were neglected that are the most favorable in the MI profiles of students.The findings of the study highlight the fact that, ESP curriculum designers, for high school students, need to consider the necessity of applying all intelligence types, also regarding the field of study, in designing the ESP textbooks.