Teach English in Simachong Zhen - Shaoyang Shi

In the beginning, I should extend my special thanks to ITTT family who gave me a chance to renew and refresh me throughoutly onece again in my over middle ages. Studying TEFL course and now CTBE gained me not only to review my English but also opened new doors to courage me inside out with enthusiasm to get some decisions in my life. My TEFL course summative task was “The Role of Teacher”. I chose it because I know that knowing something is good but the most important is to be able to make it use effectively, otherwise you are only called as an ordinary teacher… Now I have another good opportunity to write my own ideas on “Multiple Intelegence” which I presented it in a private school seminar over a decade. Instead of explaining 9 parts of “multiple inteligence” one by one, I want to do something different and try to connect where the idea comes from and, is it the completeness of the theory or just beginning of the story… I personally have a “verbal – linguistic” base and I really felt surprised and also good when I searched on multiple intelegence; why, because it was something in my mind to try to find something to complete the parts of the puzzle in my inner world and the education system which was taught us as only being successful or unsuccessfull, good student or bad student; even intelegent or stupid… As you know everyone has her/his own story coming from their childhood. I had wanted to be a musician but parents and teachers said you should be a doctor, dentist, lawyer, etc. Then I understood that they wanted me to be what they couldn’t do… And I studied teacher training… But music is always in my life. I am happy being a teacher and never blame anyone for this ‘cause they didn’t know what they don’t know… As we can clearly see, education has its own transition which needs to be improved by the time. Multiple intelegence had 8 different parts while I was giving the seminar to my students’ parents but now I see it was added the ninth one, “Existential Intelegence” so it means changing is going on as well. According to me Multiple intelligence is only a milestone of human being to be able to findout lighting a candle to the future revolutions in brains. This is showing us that the development of human being in his evolution is coming from the ages. Thank you Howard GARDNER. What makes our body which is known as human creature? Trillions of cells combined with endless combinations of DNAs; incomprehensible complexity. Wow! “How can we thret to limit human brain in some certain knowns?” Everyone is unique and everybody was degined to be able to understand in a different way. Now we have Howard GRDNER’s 9 and someday we will be taught it unlimitedly. Well I try to explain what I understood of Howard GARDNER’s Multiple Intelegence now. Before explaining my own opinion on this it is better to give how our brains work in general. It’s known that human being has two lobes in her/his brain which we call it “right and left hemisphares” . These two lobes work either separately or together by harmonizing feelings and understandings related to the case and what personality we have. In general, left hemisphare represents the mathematical and logical personalities and the right one verbal linguistic; but however they have their own domination between them. We can never make a certain decision and order in them. It differs person to person and even it has its own predomination at left and right brained persons but surely one of them is more dominant and the other one is weaker. I mean a person can have left brain and she/he can be very good at maths and well dealing with the numbers but she/he can like reading, love stories and poems. Mostly we can understand them in their behaviour by feeling their body language. Well I will be expressing it more when the case arises. * Verbal – Linguistic and Mathematical Logical Intelegence : I’d better express them in comparison. I am a very good example of this intelegence  I like reading, music, science fiction, philosophy, poem, socializing, singing and some many others… I might be much better at maths, if I would have had better education on it. I mean that having my verbal linguistic intelegence doesn’t neccessarily mean I might not be good at numbers. If I have had a perfectionist and melancholy character, does it mean that I was just programmed accordingly? No! So what is the base of it to make it happen then? This is the right question to answer. What makes personalities mostly? Well.. of course some comes from genetic codes which I give 15 – 30 % at most; but rest of it begins at pregnancy period of our mothers and up to 6 year old we gain 60 % of it. I can have had a right brain, but I could be a mathematician even if I had kept my perfectionist and melancholy character I mean. So we can see many examples of it in our lives. * Musical & Visual - Spacial and Bodily - Kinesthetic Intelegence : To me, it is very close intelegences to each others and they are both related with left and right brain; but only we can put musical intelegence below the right brain specially which needs a natural talent. I don’t mean that a left brain can not play an instrument or manage an orchestra, they can; they study music and do it by reading notes; just same with dealing numbers; but feeling is different. Right brain may not read the notes but can play an instrument or sing a song amazingly and transfer the feeling to the other side differently. The ones who have visual intelegence are natural talented artists, they have deep insight and realization in their minds, which is connected both left and right hemisphare that we can not make an exact separation left or right; because there are architects and engineers having revolutionary visualism and also great leaders in history that they made surprisingly admirable military plans. Kinesthetics have an irressistable energy flow throughout their bodies that they can not help using their gestures and facial expressions while in communication with someone and they touch unavoidably. ( Mostly it is the speciality of right brained persons as you rarely can see an engineer behaves like this ‘cause they only speak with numbers). This can sometimes cause problems, but they never mind this, actually they are not aware of the evidence and they can not understand offenses; because this the way of their communication. * Naturalist Inteligence If you have a friend who is so close to animals, plants; you can think of yourself lucky as you are most probably with a naturalist. They are natural positive energy sources. They are outsiders, friends of animals, lovers of plants, adventure seekers and voyagers. It is a bit complicated to express them which kind of brain they have, because, either..; but mostly right brains overweigh. Even if you are able to calculate species of plants and animals, they can only understand you by their instincts and feelings. * Interpersonal Intelegence I call this “skill” more than an intellegence, but however too little people choose this way as it is not the easy way to gain or unaware of this… It needs a deeply search on personal development and leadership skills to put it in practice not technically way but as a philosophy that people do not care what you say but how to say and they feel what you mean in this way. Right and left brained persons can have this intelegence, but the most important question is how to use it. Trying to pretent it probably doesn’t work… You first need to understand yourself to be able to understand the other side. Interpersonal Intelegence means simply being very good at communication which needs more listening than speaking and moreover, effective listening. I remember those times attending a leadership seminar of Covey Leadership, “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People” when I was working in a joint venture company, Siemens. It was the first impact on me beginning to understand what was happining around me and then it went on by reading many books about personal development by joining Network 21 Education programme. Personality Plus of Florance Littauer, The Greatest Salesman in the World – Og Mandino, What to Say When You Talk Yourself – Shad Helmstetter and many others began to make a great change inside out of me. So If you want to work on this intelegence, then you shouldn’t try to do it, but do it… * Intrapersonal & Existential Intelegence This is the one which covers all other intelegences. The more you try to understand and work on it, the more you can be able to realize the rest of others. This is the key one that makes connection to know holistically; That is just like an understanding levels of awareness in four steps. Think about this; first, you don’t know what you dont’t know, ( you are comfortable where you are but actually it disturbs you) second, you know what you don’t know ( this level needs to make a choice to go on and improve or you can stay where you are ), third, you know what you know ( vacuuming information to knowledge ) fourth, you don’t know what you know ( the begining of changing the way of your thinking and gaining new habits to understand all in one… ) This is just like a training course in your mind to new horizons to be able to see the big icture… Thank you! Mustafa N. Erdoğan ESL Teacher