Multiple Intelligences Representation in Iranian Official ESP Textbooks: A Content Analysis Study

Diversity in learners’ intelligence profiles was heralded by the advent of Multiple Intelligences (MI) theory. Teachers، however، do not always recognize the interests، talents، and potentials of the students. Textbooks as the main curriculum plans and guides in Iran’s educational system are expected to recognize and cater to the diverse students as individuals and hence their intelligences. This study was motivated by a query as to whether ESP textbooks published by the Organization for Researching and Composing University Textbooks in the Humanities (known as SAMT) accommodate intelligence diversity or they are an exclusive province of linguistic intelligence. In an attempt to see to the extent to which the ESP textbook activities address and engage different intelligences، a sample of them were analyzed in the light of MI theory. More specifically، eight ESP textbooks were selected randomly from among 34 ESP textbooks published by SAMT according to Biglan''s (1973) eight academic task areas، that is، each textbook was randomly selected from and belonged to one area. Activities in each textbook were extracted and evaluated using a detailed checklist developed by the current researchers drawing on the relevant literature and theoretical description of each intelligence and possible activities. The evaluation indicated that textbook activities generally involved four intelligences: verbal/linguistic، intrapersonal، logical/ mathematical and spatial/visual. These four intelligences prevailed dominantly the textbooks to the extent of 99% of the activities. Thus، though ESP textbooks are developed for different academic fields، it seems that SAMT ESP textbooks developers failed to cater to the learners’ intelligence diversity and uniformly accommodated the other intelligences in only a negligible extent of 1% of the activities.