摘　要

多元文化教育最早兴起于20世纪60年代的美国，其主张追求文化的多样性，注重对个体差异的尊重。这就要求教师培养儿童具有开放的心灵，去容纳不同的立场，去了解不同文化的价值系统。基于此理论基础，美国哈佛大学心理学家霍华德加德纳在1983年提出了多元智能理论。此理论体现的精神与这一思想是高度一致的。中国传统小学教育，一直只强调学生读和写两方面的发展。但这并不是人类智能的全部。不同的人会有不同的智能组合。这篇论文旨在介绍多元智能理论，及其对我国小学英语教育的重要性，并着重探讨了教师如何基于多元智能理论，通过各种视听说的教学手法，将此理论真实有效地应用于小学英语教育。我们的小学英语教学趋于应试教育模式，通过把多元智能教育理论以及这些方法运用到课堂中去，不仅可以使得教学方式多样化，还可以有效地提高小学生学习英语的兴趣，真正地发掘学生视听说不同方面的天赋，使得我们的小学英语教学更实用且更有效。

关键词：霍华德•加德纳；多元智能理论；小学英语教育；应用

Abstract

Multicultural Education first emerged in the 1960s in the United States. It advocates the pursuit of cultural diversity and focuses on the respect for individual differences. This requires teachers to teach the children to have an open mind to accommodate the different positions, to understand different cultures and value systems. Based on this theoretical foundation, the psychologist Howard Gardner of Harvard University put forward the theory of multiple intelligences in 1983. The spirit of this theory is highly consistent with this idea. Chinese traditional primary English education only emphasized the development of reading and writing skills. In fact, different people have different combinations of intelligences. This paper aims to introduce the theory of multiple intelligences and its impact on primary school English education. It also gives an account on how to apply the theory of multiple intelligences into primary school English teaching practically through a variety of audio-visual teaching methods. Our primary school English teaching tends to be the mode of exam-oriented education. Using the theory of multiple intelligences, and apply it into class, the teachers can not only create a greater diversity in teaching methods, but also can effectively develop the pupils’ interest in learning English. What’s more, it can spot students’ audio-visual and other different aspects of talents, making our primary school English teaching more practical and more effective.

Key words: Howard Gardner; Multiple Intelligence Theory; primary school English teaching; application

1 Introduction
1.1 The purpose and significance of the study.
Traditional intelligence theory believes that intelligence is an ability which regards the language ability and mathematical logic capacity as the core and exists in an integrated manner. However, Gardner believes that intelligence is an ability manifested by the mankind in the process of solving problems and creating products, but also one or several abilities cherished by cultural environment or the ability to solve the problem and manufacture products.