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Throughout the different modules presented in the TEFL teacher certification course, one of the key components to pay attention to was the student's learning preference. The consideration that multiple intelligences exist would be an important element to take into account in the classroom. Perhaps making a slight variation in teaching methods and assessments could indeed facilitate learning for many people. In 1983 a man named Howard Gardner presented his theory about how students, possess different kinds of minds and therefore, learn, perform, understand and remember through different cognitive pathways. He claimed we all have different components in our mind through which we can understand the world such as: visual-spacial (pictorial receptor smart), bodily-kinesthetic (body receptor smart), musical (musical receptor smart), interpersonal (people smart), intrapersonal (self awareness smart), linguistic (word smart) and logical-mathematical (number/reasoning smart). Later on, an eighth intelligence was considered which is the Naturalistic (nature smart). However Gardner believed that where we differ, is in the variation of strength of each of the intelligences. Therefore each person has a distinct combination that enables them to solve problems and progress in life. Gardner went a step further in challenging the classic education system claiming that the system assumes that all students can learn in a uniform manner. He claimed that students learn in identifiably distinct ways. It is a good exercise to imagine what could become of our society, first if we identified our intelligence diversity and second if we could teach in a variety of ways and if learning could be assessed through a variety of means. Teaching and testing can become simple if we make ourselves familiar with the different intelligence types and their respective learning styles. A mix of media can be the most effective for both teaching and evaluating. The choice of media is to be considered carefully, such possibilities are: Visuals, printed words, sounds, motions, colors, realia, the setting, pictures etc. In order to understand which media should be used, one should be well familiarized with the intelligence types as noted above. Additionally an ESA model class can be setup using the various teaching approaches for each intelligence. It isn't necessary to teach in eight different ways, but rather understand the student group as well as the teaching possibilities and move forward. If for example we will be teaching about fractions, we may read about it (linguistic), study the actual mathematical operation (logical-mathematical, examine a graph, pie-chart or see a fruit cut in half/ one third, etc. (spatial), see how nature can manifest fractions (natural), see how money can be used in a fraction in the world of sales (interpersonal), see how and embryo can fraction itself into a baby (bodily-kinesthetic and intrapersonal) and perhaps sing, write or listen to a song that explains fractions. All this can be implemented easily with the sole purpose of facilitating understanding to our students depending on their learning preferences. Any of the above mentioned examples can be implemented in the engage, study or activate phases of the lesson, depending on the type of exercise in which it will be applied.
