Who hasn’t dreamt of a year without homework or exams? Who hasn’t ever wished that
there was a method of teaching that does not involve tedious homework and exams? And
instead of listening to endless grammar and vocabulary lesson, we could enjoy music and a well structured course? Well, guess what? There is actually a learning method that does just that.
Georgi Lozanov: the developer of the suggestopedia method
Suggestopedia is a teaching method based on how the brain works and how we learn most
efficiently. Essentially used for the teaching of languages, suggestopedia claims to teach a new language three to five times faster than the normal methods.
First developed by the Bulgarian doctor and psychotherapist Georgi Lozanov in 1970,
suggestopedia has four main stages:
- Presentation
A preparatory stage in which students are helped to relax and move into a positive
frame of mind, with the feeling that the learning is going to be easy and fun.
- First Concert – “Active Concert”
This involves the active presentation of the material to be learnt. For example, in
a foreign language course there might be the dramatic reading of a piece of text,
accompanied by classical music.
- Second Concert – “Passive Review”
The students are now invited to relax and listen to some Baroque music, with the
text being read very quietly in the background. The music is specially selected to
bring the students into the optimum mental state for the effortless acquisition of the
material.
- Practice
The use of a range of games, puzzles, etc. to review and consolidate the learning.*
As you can see, suggestopedia depends heavily on music, theatre and interactive games to
get the attention of the student and keep him interested.
However that is not to say that suggestopedia is perfect. Many people have criticized it as
being a “pseudo-science”, and that it is actually effective only when the student himself
believes that the method will be successful. It is also criticized as lacking the scientific backing, and that it reduces the student to a child-like state.
So are you for or against suggestopedia?
*http://www.jwelford.demon.co.uk/brainwaremap/suggest.html
PhoeniXclusivE 