Multiple Intelligences
77 conversation questions and prompts
Share your ideas, reasons, or a story. You can talk about your own abilities or people you know.
Use the level groups as a guide. Howard Gardner’s theory proposes different kinds of intelligence. The questions invite you to discuss the idea, not label yourself or take a test.
Gardner’s eight categories are linguistic (language), logical-mathematical (logic and numbers), spatial (thinking in pictures and space), bodily-kinesthetic (using the body skillfully), musical (music), interpersonal (understanding others), intrapersonal (understanding yourself), and naturalistic (recognizing patterns in nature).
A1
Beginner (A1)
11 questions
- What can you make with your hands?
- Which is easier for you: words or numbers?
- Who asks you for help with numbers?
- Which is easier for you, singing or dancing?
- What is easy for you but hard for other people?
- What do people say you are good at?
- Who is good with animals? What can they do?
- Who can fix things in your family?
- What can a young child teach you?
- Which is easier for you: talking or writing?
- How good are you at remembering names?
A2
Elementary (A2)
15 questions
- When you hear a new song, what do you remember first: the words or the music?
- What do people think you are good at, but you are not?
- Who is good at explaining difficult things to you?
- What are you better at doing alone than with other people?
- Who would you ask to choose colors for a room?
- Who in your family is good at choosing gifts?
- Who do you know who can make something without instructions?
- How well can you copy a dance after watching it?
- What were you good at as a child that you cannot do now?
- Which person on TV seems smart to you? What do they do?
- What can you tell about a person from their voice?
- What mistakes do you often notice in signs or messages?
- Think of someone you grew up with. What are you each good at?
- Which of your skills would surprise your classmates?
- What is easier for you to describe with a picture than with words?
B1
Intermediate (B1)
20 questions
- Tell me about someone who was quiet in class but talented outside it.
- Which of Gardner’s intelligence categories best describes your strengths?
- What can you recognize from just a small part, like a few notes of a song?
- When has someone noticed an ability you did not know you had?
- If you could choose one kind of intelligence for your child, which would you choose?
- How good are you at imagining whether furniture will fit in a room?
- Tell me about a time you were impressed by how someone handled a difficult person.
- What do you know a lot about that never comes up on a school test?
- Which kind of intelligence gets the most respect?
- Describe a time you noticed that someone was upset when nobody else did.
- Which skill looks natural when someone else does it but takes you a lot of thought?
- When someone speaks well, what other abilities do you expect them to have?
- Which kind of intelligence do you consider least important?
- Tell me about a skill you could show someone but found hard to explain.
- Have you ever been surprised that a talented person could not do something simple?
- Which takes more thinking, making people laugh or solving a math problem?
- Describe a time you and another person used different skills to solve a problem together.
- What do you think being good at chess tells you about a person?
- What ability do people think you have because of your job or studies? Are they right?
- Who has a talent that they never seem to take seriously?
B2
Upper Intermediate (B2)
19 questions
- How can you tell whether someone understands your feelings or is just good at saying the right thing?
- How much does answering quickly tell you about someone’s ability?
- Which jobs would suit each of Gardner’s intelligence categories?
- What makes someone good at finding the weak point in an argument?
- What do people miss about a skilled person’s work when they say, “I could do that”?
- Tell me about a time you were impressed by someone’s question rather than their answer.
- Which kind of intelligence do you think could do the most to improve the world?
- When has being good with words helped someone hide a lack of understanding?
- How can being known as “the artistic one” or “the practical one” affect what someone tries?
- Which abilities are easier to recognize in yourself than in other people?
- Which kinds of intelligence are most likely to help someone earn a lot of money?
- Which takes more skill: copying a piece of music accurately or playing it in your own way?
- Does being exceptionally good in one of Gardner’s intelligence categories make someone a genius?
- What do people who are good with animals notice that other people miss?
- Which abilities are easier to recognize in someone you live with than in someone you work with?
- What can you learn about someone’s thinking by watching them make something?
- What abilities do you use together when you tell a story well?
- When would you choose a person with broad abilities over someone brilliant at one thing?
- What kind of intelligence do your favorite fictional characters have?
C1
Advanced (C1)
12 questions
- Can someone understand other people exceptionally well while repeatedly misjudging themselves? Give some examples.
- Which kind of intelligence would be hardest to measure fairly? Why?
- When someone finds a pattern others have missed, how do you judge whether it is a discovery or a coincidence?
- How much does recognizing an ability depend on having some of that ability yourself?
- Should an intelligence test allow people to choose how they answer, or would that make the results less useful?
- How convincing do you find Gardner’s idea that there are several different kinds of intelligence?
- How much credit should a musician get for technical skill when their performance leaves the audience cold?
- Is describing an artist’s or athlete’s ability as “intelligence” a useful explanation, a mark of respect, or something else?
- What makes reading an animal's behavior a different kind of knowledge from reading a person's behavior?
- When does calling an ability "natural" stop us from seeing the work behind it?
- How would you test someone’s understanding of nature without mostly testing the names they know?
- Can a group be intelligent in ways that none of its members are individually? What forms can that take?