Towards Guidelines for TEFL in Jordan

This study examines the incorporation of the principles of Multiple Intelligences Theory (MIT) in Jordanian EFL textbooks, Action Pack, by means of content analysis, identifies EFL teachers' knowledge of and perceptions of MIT, and provides guidelines for the inclusion of MIT in the textbooks by redesigning a number of lessons from 1st, 4th, 8th and 11th grade textbooks in light of MIT principles. The findings revealed that the moral, existential and spiritual intelligences were not incorporated in the activities of the textbooks under study, that the inclusion of multiple intelligences in the textbooks was imbalanced, that only the verbal/ linguistic, intrapersonal and spatial/visual intelligences were balanced; meanwhile, the other intelligences were imbalanced, that EFL teachers' knowledge of and perceptions about MIT varied according to gender, age, qualification, experience, class taught and participation in training programs.

Autorentext

Dr. Taghrid Al-Omari is a part-time instructor at the Language Center at Yarmouk University (Irbid, Jordan). Dr. Ruba Bataineh is a professor of TEFL at the Dept of Curriculum and Instruction at Yarmouk University. Dr. Oqlah Smadi is a professor of applied linguistics at the Dept of Curriculum and Instruction at Yarmouk University.