On Teaching to Diversity: Investigating the Effectiveness of MI-Inspired Instruction in an EFL Context

This study reports an experiment conducted to investigate the effectiveness of implementing MI-inspired instruction in an EFL context. To this end, a group of ten intermediate female students took part in a quasi-experimental study. At the beginning of the experiment, Multiple Intelligences Survey (Armstrong, 1993) was administered to determine the participants’ MI profiles. The participants were pre-tested using Oxford Placement Test (OPT) (Allen, 2004) to determine their level of proficiency. During the control phase, the participants received so-called ‘MI-poor’ instruction which mostly focused on verbal-linguistic type of intelligence among others. During the experimental phase, based on the initial MI survey and students’ exit slips, a variety of activities were implemented to invoke various types of intelligence. At the end of both control and experimental phases, OPT along with Headway Stop & Check tests were administered. OPT was administered to determine the participants’ general progress and Stop & Check tests were given to trace any possible specific progresses. The findings of the study revealed a significant performance on Stop & Check tests which was indicative of the at least partial effectiveness of implementing MI-inspired instruction.