Learning with interpersonal intelligence

Students with kinesthetic intelligence and kinesthetic style of learning will enjoy these activities, since it allows them to manipulate objects while learning about its properties. Learners with interpersonal intelligence will work best if given a pair to work with in searching for words or building something. Intrapersonal intelligence will prefer activities that made them find out about themselves, while linguistic intelligent learners will be eager to describe steps of the activity of give feedback. Logical intelligent learners are happy to assist the teacher in summing up surveys, in finding differences and percentage of how the students achieved a task.

Variations of games such as Around the room or Bring + Color + Object, Numbers and plural forms as presented by Elizabeth Claire (1988) were also used. Students would ask other students to go to certain objects in the classroom, to bring them or to place them somewhere else, to describe or find an object that was described using drills in a joyous atmosphere, with partners if needed. Requirements were shaped according to disabilities (visually-impaired students were asked to describe the shape and not the color of the pencil box, autistic children were given the liberty to choose an item they want to describe, physically challenged learners were bought the objects to their desk while hearing disabled student would focus on manipulating the objects or describing a hidden object and its use through gestures, for the others to guess)

English portfolio is the folder where students create their own pages, consolidate new vocabulary in a personalized manner or place any activity sheet considered important to English learning. It has been found that even though they consist of the same content and volume of vocabulary or grammar items, these personalized sheets, compared to sheets devised by the teacher or downloaded from teaching sites are by far the ones that generate learning. Students are free to use imagination and creativity at full speed, are in charge of colors, sizes, choice of materials and tools, sometime the topic itself, and express themselves happily, all in the name of language development. Letters, CVs, recipes, daily journal, greeting cards or personalized drawings with specific descriptions are present in the portfolio.

However, not all students are easily motivated to do personalized portfolio sheets, not all have basic drawing skills, not all have access to magazine where they can cut pictures from (to prevent students form lacking access to materials, the lesson often starts with the teacher bringing magazines to class, to initiate the activity which they have to finish at home) and finally not all students can, just like in the following examples of sheets devised by a motor-impaired teenager who could not cut and paste pictures himself, but devised the same sheets on his personal computer.

This is also the case for some teenage learners with autistic spectrum disorder who prefer to elaborate individual portfolio sheets on the computer to fit the frames perfectly, as they feel the need do to so, illustrated below:

It has also been managed to engage almost all my autistic teenage students in didactic activities, even in pairs, with the use of parents or caretakers participating in the class, or establishing rapport with one colleague and stick to that pair for a long time until it became a habit, knowing that they feel safe and at ease with a pattern. They like repetitive games, drills, respecting the order of different types on activity in the class but most lack creativity. If a teenager without disabilities has fun in creating a ridiculous sentence, with an unlikely action or exaggerated qualities of an object or person, an autistic student cannot do this and will often ask for an explanation of the previous ridiculous sentence. With Asperger Syndrome students who are interested in Math and IT, teaching English as a foreign language was easy for me since it was catchy for them to describe objects, games, steps and whatever they like, learn new vocabulary to solve a personal matter at the computer, since they have previously acquired vocabulary and fixed phrases for us to work with and build on. However, even if they can solve difficult Math problems, above their age level, during breaks they still have more or less difficulties in engaging in normal social interactions with their peers.

Starting high school is difficult for all teenagers, since they must adapt to other colleagues, learn new routines, face new challenges and on a psychological level they fight to establish the role (usually that of a leader) in a group and the way they are perceived by pears matters the most. For an autistic teenager this may feel catastrophic. Most of his routine faces changes, which he cannot cope with, most teachers and colleagues are new, which he fears he cannot deal with. Some adapt during the first weeks of school (like my students V. T. and M. D.), but some (like my student B. V.) take the entire ninth grade to adapt, while some never completely accept the change. At any given time, changing the chair or desk or class or the order of students in their desks may trigger an intense emotional outburst, with bizarre noises, screams and restlessness. For those who are at a medium level of English language acquisition and social skills, new vocabulary and skills are easier to establish (like with students such as D. R., V. T. or F. M.), than with those who are beginners at ESL and / or lack social skills or language skills in general (like my student B. V.). Practicing speech to face an auditorium, especially not in the native language, but a second language requires time and practice but it brings fulfillment and joy to learners and empowers them. As seen in the pictures of students speaking or reading different topics in front of the class, after emotions get washed away, confidence and success come. Most like and ask for repeating exercises on spontaneous dialogues in different real like situations, like at the market place shown in the picture or in a job interview. Conducting interview between students has proven to be a very resourceful intensive listening and speaking activity that improve language skills in general as well as social abilities. In intensive listening activities the teacher may be the organizer, the prompter, device operator as well as feedback organizer, but some of these roles may be perfectly well conducted by trained learners, with or without a script.

After graduating, students in the Autistic Spectrum Disorder are the ones who insist in undertaking post-secondary courses, usually to specialize in aesthetics, massage or nutrition, while those who passed the Baccalaureate exam with flying colors, even go to universities and graduate Master’s Degree (like my former student M. B. with a Master’s Degree in Engineering). Highly-skilled autistic people can easily accomplish complicated specialized operations, but they cannot handle money in everyday life or cross the street alone (T. A.). They lack practical sense even if they have a high level of abstract intelligence but that does not serve them in real life; they are therefore socially deficient and need specialized care to make them properly integrated in today’s society.

It is useful to intertwine teaching English to art therapy since students with disability become more relaxed and feel a higher degree of liberty in choosing colors, shapes, arranging the setting, organizing objects or images by function, type, color etc. it is a nice way to practice objects, shapes, colors, holiday greetings, basic English small talk and so on.