Humanising Language Teaching
Year 4; Issue 4; July 02

A book of Multiple Intelligence Exercises from Spain

Fonseca Mora, M.C.(coord.) 2002.
Inteligencias Múltiples, Múltiples Formas de Enseñar.
Sevilla: Mergablum.

This book is a collection of articles related to Howard Gardner's theory of multiple intelligences. Each chapter includes an introductory reflection in Spanish which reviews some aspect of one of the intelligences and suggests several activities in English to focus on different intelligences in the classroom.

The book will be on the market in November. More information will be available from Mergablum at:

Street address: Dr. Escobar Delmás, 1 Bajo. 41018 Sevilla, España.
e-mail address: mergablum@minervasl.com mlamores@minervasl.com

If you scroll down to below the Spanish Language Table of Contents you will find 9 well-baked exercises, ready for use, in English.

Ana Robles

Learning to pay attention to our feelings is the first step on the way to a well developed emotional intelligence. This activity focuses the students' attention on how they are feeling and helps them to link those feelings to the new language they are learning.

It is also a good warm-up for a group coming from another lesson or place. First it gives the students the opportunity to settle down and focus on themselves and then asks them to use their target language to talk about themselves.

Level: lower intermediate and above
Time: 5 minutes
Purpose: to pay attention to feelings
Materials : none
Procedure : depending on the linguistic level of the group, you may start by reviewing basic vocabulary to describe shapes, size, colours, etc.

Tell your students to notice how they are feeling. Ask them to think of the colour, size, texture which best expresses their feelings. They have to describe their feelings to a partner. Ask them to think and then describe their feelings orally to a classmate. Their description should follow the example: My feeling is soft, red, and round.

Javier Avila

Recent psychological research suggests that much of our learning is related to imagery. One of most important reasons for that cognitive potential is the close relationship between mental imagery and creativity. Guided mental imagery training can help to awaken a sense of creativity atrophied by an education that focuses only on concepts and numbers.

Level: Intermediate
Time: 45--55 minutes
Purpose: work with the conditional tense and develop the ability to use visual imagery in thinking
Materials: none
Procedure: Tell the following story to your students, ask them to see themselves in the story, then ask them to answer the question you ask.
Script: Imagine you are strolling in the old part of a city. It is a foggy evening in January and you are alone; you are enjoying your walk a lot, the sights of the city, the smells, the cold, the silence of the night… Suddenly you see something shining on the ground, you kneel down and realise it is a golden ring. You take it and rub it against your sleeve. Even at night it shines very brightly. You try it on and a very weird feeling spreads throughout your body. It is wonderful, and you feel very powerful, as if you could do whatever you wish. Suddenly you feel that you would like a piece of chocolate cake and there it is, in your hand… At that moment, you realise that all your desires can come true.

What would you do with this magnificent power?

Think carefully about it, consider the world situation, your own life, the lives of others you know and remember that you can do everything, whatever you want. Decide on what you would like to do, picture it in your mind, then write down what you saw.

Give students 15 minutes to finish writing. Based on what they have written, they work in pairs and tell their partner what they would do. They will need to negotiate between them three things they would do. They both must agree on all three. Then they share with the rest of the class.

Helena Aikin University Castilla- la Mancha, Ciudad Real

This activity – very useful with teenagers, as it involves simple, enjoyable tasks related to art, drama, language and music- draws on several of Gardner´s multiple intelligences: first of all, it helps develop the pupils´ interpersonal intelligence, as they are required to work in teams; it also entails the use of spatial intelligence, for the students sketch and cut out the movie characters; linguistic intelligence is included too, because the audience is asked to provide the words for the trailer; films often have theme songs and therefore this activity can involve musical intelligence as well. Finally, students move their puppets behind the screen, and consequently need to use their kinaesthetic intelligence.

Level: intermediate and above Material: Black cardboard, scissors, coloured cellophane, chopsticks, screen, lamp.
(The screen can be made from a piece of white cotton sewn to two sticks at opposite ends and hung horizontally. The lamp is placed about 1 metre behind the screen and the light directed to the centre). Purpose: work with language of description, developing creativity.
Procedure: The class is divided into groups; each of them chooses a popular film in order to make a trailer with shadow puppets. They draw simple outlines of the different characters on a piece of black cardboard and cut them out. These silhouettes are taped to rods (e.g. chopsticks) and moved from below or at right angles to the screen. The action takes place behind the screen, so what the audience actually sees are the projected shadows.
Each group performs silently in front of the class while the other teams guess the film and provide the words for the trailer.
Students can bring in music from their film to play after the class has guessed their film and while the trailer is being created.

Carmen Fonseca
University of Huelva

Music can be an excellent way of motivating our students to participate. It can even open the door to creativity. This is the main aim of the following activity. Music is used as an initial stimulus as students move from individual to group work when they have to negotiate to connect their ideas/sentences into a meaningful poem. One surprising effect is that students' work in English becomes a "work of art". Another one is that students smile while they are writing.

Level: intermediate
Time: 40 minutes
Purpose: to connect melodies to movies, to remember significant moments of the movies, to use English creatively.
Materials : a tape of music from well-known movies
Procedure: The teacher writes the title of five well-known movies and asks students to listen to different musical extracts from the movies. They have to match the tunes with their movie. Students comment on this task. Then, working individually, students write a relevant sentence for each movie. Next, in groups, they choose five sentences from the ones they have all written and use them to write a poem. Remind them that they should use connectors to join the different sentences. While they are writing their poems, soft instrumental music can be played in the background. Their final product can be read aloud, written on a transparency for the class to read, put up in the classroom, included in a class newspaper, etc.

I used the following movies and melodies for this task:
1. Ghost
2. Pretty Woman
3. Robin Hood
4. Forrest Gump
5. Memories of Africa

A.Unchained melody
B. Pretty woman
C. Everything I do
D. California Dreaming
E. Mozart's Concert for Clarinet

Eva Díaz Pinto

Everybody needs to take into account both their affective and intellectual dimensions for their full development as a human being. With teenagers, involved in the construction of their own identity, it is crucial to create a supportive environment at school where they can feel accepted. The following activity activates the learners' emotional intelligence.

Level: intermediate
Purpose: To motivate students towards the oral use of the target language by giving them the opportunity to express their own feelings.
Time: 15 minutes
Procedure: First, a question which brings to mind positive emotional experiences is proposed. Then, learners are given time to think about them while they are listening to some peaceful music and, finally, they share their thoughts with a partner. The process can be repeated three or four times, changing the question and the partner. Some possible questions could be:

1. "Think of a positive event which made you feel good in the last weeks."
2. "Who has had the most positive influence on your life? Why do you think this is so?"
3. "Think about the moment when you will finish school and begin university studies or start working. You will have to say good-bye to your classmates. What would you miss most and why?"

Sonia Casal
Escuela Oficial de Idiomas, Huelva

This is a structure developed by Spenser Kagan (Cooperative Learning), where dialogue, communication gambits and language awareness play a major role. 'Talking Chips' is part of a broader methodological approach, Cooperative Learning. In general terms, Cooperative Learning stems from group work but adds features such as positive interdependence, designed to improve learning, motivation, and academic achievement.

Level: Intermediate and above
Time: 40 minutes
Material: a set of chips or slips for each student (see below)
Purpose: to develop speaking and the ability to work together cooperatively
Procedures: The class is divided into groups of four. Each member of the group is given a set of 10 slips of paper (or chips), with 10 different discourse. Learners must place a chip on the table before they start speaking. At the end of the discussion, all students must have used their chips; in this way, all students take part. When a learner finishes their contribution, the other members of the group think of a suitable way to continue the conversation. Students cannot speak unless they use a chip and all members of the group must have spoken before they can take another turn. The following table shows some of the different discourse strategies that students can make use of:

EXPRESS A DOUBT ANSWER A QUESTION ASK A QUESTION GIVE AN IDEA ASK FOR CLARIFICATION CLARIFY AN IDEA RESPOND TO AN IDEA SUMMARISE ENCOURAGE PARTICIPATION SAY SOMETHING POSITIVE ABOUT SOMEONE'S IDEA

With its emphasis on communication and language awareness, 'Talking Chips' serves two main purposes: it activates both social and cognitive processes. Social processes play an important role in 'Talking Chips'. Working in small groups, students build up their knowledge within a specific social frame. Students learn to negotiate, to summarise, to clarify an idea by interacting with the other members of the group. The social environment built in the classroom is regarded as the source of the student's knowledge.

At the same time, cognitive activity is initiated since students are pushed to process language more deeply, with more mental effort. Language is the essential instrument through which learners contrast and modify not only their speech, but also their schemes of knowledge, organizing and regulating their cognitive processes.

Fernando Rubio Alcalá
University of Huelva

Level: Intermediate.
Time: 25 minutes
Purpose: work with the vocabulary of emotions, recognizing emotions and writing about them.
Procedures: Brainstorm words and expressions related to emotions. If necessary, add more including, for instance, "bored, sad, surprised, satisfied, miserable, embarrassed, reflective, in love, in pain, innocent, hysterical, jealous, frightened/scared, exhausted, curious, happy, interested, furious/angry, disappointed, cold, anxious, worried, disgusted...".
Ask the students: "How am I feeling today?" and perform one of the options given. Ask the students to guess the feeling from the list. Then, let students do the same for the whole class or in groups of five.
After that, discuss with then (using L1 if necessary) how it is important to recognise one's feelings because our feelings affect our behaviour and our learning.
Also, explain that feelings change depending on many factors (parents, friends, weather, etc.), and that other people's feelings should be respected.
As a follow-up activity, have the students write a short composition about how they feel in the language class. Write some questions as a guideline:
"How are you feeling today in the class? Why? What people or matters are involved? How do you usually feel? What things could be changed in order tomake you feel better?", etc.

Jane Arnold
University of Seville

Carl Rogers, Howard Gardner and Carla Hannaford, among many others, have lamented the rigid separation of mental and physical sides of learners. Many students have a specific need to move in order to learn but all students can benefit from a concern with movement and the body in the classroom. Some of the advantages to letting students "move and learn" are that more oxigen flows to the brain, there is a greater integration of the different parts of the brain, the level of energy in the class is increased, and students are provided with "down time", free from more linguistic input, so they can better process what they are learning.

Level: intermediate and above
Time: 20-25 minutes
Purpose: to get students in groups where they work with different class members and to develop a positive group dynamic.
Materials: affirmative sayings (see below for suggstions) written on A-4 sheets of different colored heavy paper and then cut into several pieces, like a puzzle. The number of pieces should be the same as the number of students in the class.
Procedure: At the beginning of the class each student is given a piece of one of the sayings puzzles. (If you find there are one or two extra pieces, give some students two of the same color. If you need one or two more, cut pieces in two.) All those with the same color form a group and put their pieces together to see what their saying is. Then each group decides how to present their saying to the rest of the class. Suggest they consider many options: choral reading, singing it, rapping it, using gestures, each student reading one word, echoing parts of the saying, etc. Give them a few minutes to prepare and then give their presentations for the whole class.

Sayings: