INTEGRATING EFL LEARNERS' TRAITS: MI, LEARNING STRATEGIES AND LANGUAGE PROFICIENCY

Abstract

Multiple intelligences and learning strategies are significant factors in learning a foreign language. It seems that, exploring the relationship between these variables is a relatively new issue, which has recently become considerable and drawn the attention of English instructors. In a bid to address this issue, this study was conducted to discover the relationship between multiple intelligences, learning strategies, and EFL learners’ language proficiency level among the Iranian candidates. In fact, the attempt was made to explore the extent to which they correlate. To fulfill this objective, a 140-item language proficiency test, a 70-item multiple intelligence questionnaire, and a 50-item learning strategies questionnaire were distributed among 132 Iranian students. Pearson correlation coefficients were applied to analyze the data. The results indicated that the nature of strategies is different from intelligence since contrary to the relationship between language proficiency and multiple intelligence, learning strategies do not have such a relationship with language proficiency. Further studies on the nature of these main variables encompass multiple intelligence and learning strategies in isolation and mixed, in addition, the issue of the nature of each construct is recommended.