Undergraduate Students Examining Multiple Intelligence Theory through Developing an English Language Curriculum.

Undergraduate Students Examining Multiple Intelligence Theory through Developing an English Language Curriculum.

Mohamed, Maha Fathi

Misr International University (MIU) is a private Egyptian university whose medium of instruction is English. It consists of 8 faculties, one of which is Faculty of Alsun (languages), English Department. During the 4 years of study at Alsun, students take literature, translation & applied linguistics courses that help them improve their linguistic competence and become professional literary critics, translators or English Language teachers. As a graduation requirement, students have to do a project incorporating skills and ideas they have learned. On the other hand, when joining MIU, students of all majors sit for an English exam in order to be placed in one of 5 English Language levels. The purpose is to improve students’ language skills to enable them to cope with studying in English and succeed in their various majors. The purpose of this study is to present an approach to the teaching – learning process in which theory is put to practice. As such, Alsun graduation project was to tailor a language curriculum for the first level of English at MIU. The aim is to base the curriculum on the needs of the university as well as give Alsun students the chance to implement what they have studied. Fourth year Alsun students underwent that experiment during the Fall semester of 2011. They were divided into groups of 4, where each group developed 3 English language lessons. Students’ work was based on the theoretical framework of Gardner’s (1983) “Multiple Intelligence Theory” & on Richards’ (2007) steps of curriculum development. The paper will describe the steps students followed, including establishing needs, planning learning outcomes, providing instructional material & effective teaching methods & providing evaluation means. It will also talk about problems they have met, methods of overcoming them and finally feedback from teachers and students in the English language classes. (299 words)

Conference or Workshop Item
PeerReviewed

2012-05

903