SUGGESTOPEDIA EDUCATIONAL METHOD

Dear Friends,

In this article I would like to introduce you the educational method called suggestopedia. Suggestopedia is a new teaching method developed by the Bulgarian psychotherapist Georgi Lozanov. It is used mostly to learn foreign languages but also for other subjects.

Suggestopedia is a science for developing different non-manipulative and non-hypnotic methods for teaching/learning based on the level of reserve (potential, unused) capacities of the brain/mind. That means: at least three to five times faster, easier and deeper learning; inner freedom; increasing the motivation for learning; joyful learning and psycho-physiological well-being. The effectiveness as well as the benefits of the genuine method have been confirmed by the most prestigious international commissions and scientists.
The best results of suggestopedia are not due to any technique (guided relaxation, guided fantasies, breathing exercises, etc.) as a number of authors fabricated but to a holistic knowledge of the psychophysiological mechanisms of personal reserves.

Key Elements of Suggestopedia
• A rich sensory learning environment (pictures, colour, music, etc.)
• A positive expectation of success and the use of a varied range of methods: dramatized texts, music, active participation in songs and games, etc.

Four main stages

1. 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.

2. 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.

3. 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.

4. Practice – The use of a range of games, puzzles, etc. to review and consolidate the learning.

Principles and Description

• Authority: People remember best and are most influenced by information coming from an authoritative source.

• Infantilization: In the child’s role that learner takes part in role playing, games, songs, and gymnastic exercises that help “the older student regain the self-confidence, spontaneity and receptivity of the child.

• Double-Planeness: The learner learns not only from the effect of direct instruction but from the environment in which the instruction takes place. (the bright decor of the classroom, the musical background, the shape of the chairs, and the personality of the teacher are considered as important in instruction as the form of the instructional material itself.

• Intonation, Rhythm, and Concert Pseudo-Passiveness

• Varying the tone and rhythm of presented material helps both to avoid boredom through monotony of repetition and to dramatize, emotionalize, and give meaning to linguistic material.

• The musical background helps to induce a relaxed attitude which Lozanov refers to as concert pseudo-passiveness. The type of music is critical to learning success. At the institute Lozanov recommends a series of slow movements (sixty beats a minute) in 4/4 time for Baroque concertos strung together into about a half-hour-‘concert.’ He notes that in such concerts “the body relaxed, the mind became alert”

• The rate of presentation of material to be learned within the rhythmic pattern is keyed to the rhythm. Super learning uses an eight-second cycle for pacing out data at slow intervals. Supporters reflect that “the minute is divided into sixty seconds and that perhaps there’s more to this than just an arbitrary division of time.”

Professor Doctor Georgi Lozanov, M. D. is a Bulgarian psychiatrist – psychotherapist, brain physiologist and an educator. He is the creator of the science Suggestology and its application in pedagogy – Suggestopedia. Suggestopedia is the pedagogy operating on the level of the reserves of mind, tapped in a new organization of the teaching – learning communication. His methodology was officially observed by a 25 experts commission from UNESCO in 1978, evaluated as a superior teaching method and recommended for application all over the world. As a result, he was detained under home arrest for the period 1980 – 1989 until the political changes in Bulgaria.

Other video sources about Suggestopedia:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gNFrAGfi50A
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DS9ssBARdLk

Article written by Milena Ignatova  – Eco Monde