A case study on a vocabulary development program based on multiple intelligence theory

Teaching English is getting more and more important day by day. Furthermore, teaching vocabulary is a very important thing in language teaching, since words play a significant role in showing our feelings, emotions, and ideas. Therefore, teaching vocabulary effectively is important for teachers to produce learners who are successful in communicating their ideas and feelings. Moreover, students should know their weaknesses and strengths in the language learning process. In Turkey students at Anatolian High Schools come from different backgrounds and they have different multiple intelligences profiles. Moreover, there is no special curriculum or syllabus designed by Ministry of Education based on these differences. There is only one curriculum for every type of school. This study started on 13th of February 2014, and continued until 27th of March 2014. The study took 7 weeks to complete. First week, Multiple Intelligences Survey was completed by the students and then analyzed by the researcher. Then, the vocabulary items were selected for each week from the course book; "Yes You Can", which the Ministry of Education chose for the ninth graders of Anatolian High Schools for the second term. During the last 6 weeks, the vocabulary items were taught according to lesson plans, which were design based on MI. As a data collection instrument, a Multiple Intelligence Survey, researcher's diary and interviews that were conducted with the students were used in order to learn how to establish and conduct a vocabulary-development program using multiple intelligence theory as a basis and to determine whether involvement in vocabulary-development program increase my students' level of participation in vocabulary practice activities or not. At the end of the study, we learned how to establish and conduct a vocabulary-development program using multiple intelligence theory as a basis. We also learned that involvement in this vocabulary-development program increase students' level of participation in vocabulary practice activities.