Teach English in Zhaowan Zhen - Ankang Shi

The gradually evolving humanistic tendencies in the life of modern society requires a shift of emphasis from mass pedagogical phenomena to the personality of students and a detailed study of possibilities of their individual development in the process of education. This is, perhaps, the main reason why the modern pedagogy is rather concerned about the personal orientation of the educational process. Today’s educational programs mainly focus on two types of abilities- verbal-linguistic and logical-mathematical. However, according to American psychologist Howard Gardner’s approach, there are other talents and skills as well that can enrich our lives and help us to effectively interact with the outside world. Gardner’s theory of multiple intelligence suggests that every person owns at least nine types of intelligence expressed in various degrees or levels, such as linguistic, logical-mathematical, musical, spatial, kinesthetic, interpersonal and intrapersonal. No matter which type of intelligence teachers will focus on to develop as an outcome of the teaching process, they should consider that intellect is a person’s unique ability to solve problems in a non-standard way and generate new ideas that have a high degree of value. Though the application of Gardner’s theory in the teaching process can vary, however, we cannot deny that it is one of the best options for organizing individualized learning, as students become the active part of the learning process, which motivates them to gain certain knowledge and skills through direct perception and observation. To put it another way, the educational process should be structured in a way that would require the involvement of different types of intelligence. This, in its turn, implies that a professional teacher should be able to work simultaneously with different students (with a different level of knowledge, a completely different mind-set, different attitudes towards learning, etc.) taking into account the peculiarities of their intellectual integration. This will give the chance to create suitable conditions for the integral intellectual development of students, to consolidate the individual identity of each of them and to optimize the process of assimilating the necessary knowledge and skills. It should be noted that the learning process is mainly based on one or two types of intelligence, but, in order to make it more effective and efficient, teachers are encouraged to apply the other types of intelligence too through a variety of activities. As a result, they take on more responsibility while organizing and implementing the teaching process such as creating an appropriate learning atmosphere, breaking the ice and make it easy for students to be involved, encouraging and motivating them to be more confident, experimenting new teaching methods and finding the suitable ones, which obviously requires higher professional and personal qualities. Planning such a lesson requires ingenuity and inventiveness, therefore in this process the growth and development of teachers’ creative potential takes place as well. On the other hand, the consideration of the intellectual characteristics of students during classes aids teachers to perceive them from completely different and new positions. Given the above, we can claim once again that the experiment and application of the main principles and provisions of Howard Gardner’s theory of multiple intelligence in the educational process is one of the best and effective options for organizing individualized education, because it not only improves the results of learning, but also enhances the quality of teaching, and provides the intellectual development of each student.