The Relationship between Iranian English Learners’ Linguistic Intelligence and their Writing Ability, and Writing Assessment Criteria

Gardner’s Multiple Intelligences Theory (MIT) specifies at least eight human intelligences, one of which is linguistic intelligence. Gardner (1983) also calls this intelligence the intelligence of words, since it is mainly concerned with written and spoken forms of language. This new theory of intelligence which gives emphasis to learner variable has been used in language learning and teaching settings. The present paper studies possible relationship between L2 learners’ linguistic intelligence and their writing ability, and writing assessment criteria. 33 female homogeneous Persian speaking EFL learners participated in this study. The instruments used were the Multiple Intelligence Developmental Assessment Scales (MIDAS), designed by Shearer (1996), and the participants’ two writings. The linguistic intelligence index was taken from the MIDAS and the participantsʹ average scores on two writing tasks were used as an index of writing products. The writings were scored based on Jacobs et al.’s scale of five criteria: content, organisation, language use, vocabulary, and mechanics. The correlational analysis of the results revealed a significant relationship between participantsʹ linguistic intelligence and their performance on writing. Furthermore, the results of regression analysis showed that among all five criteria, vocabulary shows higher correlation with linguistic intelligence. Possible implications of the findings for language teaching and teaching writing will be discussed.