Inteligências múltiplas no ensino de inglês em uma sala de recursos: uma experiência envolvendo alunos com altas habilidades/superdotação

Abstract

The present research was conducted in the resource room for students with high abilities/giftedness of the Parana Education Institute, which serves not only students enrolled in that institution, but also students enrolled in other schools that do not have the resource room. The students who attended the classes were studying between the sixth year of elementary school and the third year of high school. Therefore, covering the age group between 11 and 17 years. The objective of the present research was to verify the possible benefits of applying the theory of multiple intelligences in English language teaching to the above student profile mentioned above. In addition to Gardner (2010) and Sabatella (2013), the guidelines of the Treaty of Salamanca (1994), as well as the MEC, support the theoretical basis of the present research. A multiple intelligence questionnaire was applied to detect which were the dominant ones in the observed group, an observation sheet was created, and lesson plans focused on the results extracted from the first two mentioned instruments of data collection. In this group of specific students, the dominant intelligences detected were logical-mathematical and intrapersonal. Therefore, the profile of the class was more introspective and, consequently, the activities elaborated had to take into account such profile so that the students' interest could be awakened. After the didactic-pedagogical interventions, it was evident that knowing and exploring the dominant intelligences of a group can help the foreign-language teacher to achieve success in its objectives in the classroom. However, ignoring such intelligences can impair student performance and interest in the content.