AUGMENTING LINGUISTIC INTELLIGENCE THROUGH CHESS TRAINING - AN EMPIRICAL STUDY

Does playing Chess improve reading, writing, speaking, and listening skill, the components of Linguistic Intelligence? The ability to manipulate syntax, phonetics, pragmatics, and semantics of the language is defined as Linguistic Intelligence. The experimental group underwent Chess training once a week, through the year (around 25 to 30 sessions), as part of co-curricular school activity. ANCOVA showed significant gains in Verbal Reasoning (an integral part of Linguistic Intelligence) for the experimental group than the control group who were involved in other extra-curricular activities. The study used pretest–posttest with control group design with WISC IV India and Binet Kamat Test of Intelligence for the assessment. 70 children in the experimental group and 81 children in the control group were randomly selected from four schools of both genders in the age group of 5 -16. Results indicate enhanced Linguistic Intelligence, which could also lead to improved communication, critical and analytical skills