DESUGGESTOPEDIA

What is De-suggestopedia?

It is an approach to education whose primary objective is to tap the extraordinary reserve capacities we all possess but rarely if ever use. This method utilises techniques from many sources of research into how best we can learn. The Bulgarian scientist, Dr. Georgi Lozanov, for example, has demonstrated that through a carefully “orchestrated” learning environment including most importantly a specially-trained teacher, the learning process can be accelerated by a factor of three to ten times enjoyably. Such results are possible through the proper use of suggestion. The suggestive-desuggestive process allows students to go beyond previously held beliefs and self-limiting concepts concerning the learning process and learn great quantities of material with ease and enjoyment.

Sources, History, Initial Results

The artful use of suggestion as a means of facilitating the learning and communication process is, of course, and has always been, a part of nearly all effective teaching and persuasive communication. Not until the past twenty years, however, has the phenomenon of suggestion begun to be methodically researched and tested as to how it can and does affect learning. At the centre of these developments is the work of Lozanov. For more than 20 years he has been experimenting with accellerative approaches to learning, has founded the Institute of Suggestology in Sofia, Bulgaria and has authored the book: Suggestology and the Outlines or Suggestopedia (Gordon and Breach, New York, 1997).

In his early research Lozanov investigated individual cases of extraordinary learning capacities etc., and theorised that such capacities were learnable and teachable. He experimented with a wide range of techniques drawn from both traditional and esoteric sources, including hypnosis and yoga, and was able to accelerate the learning process quite dramatically.

Well aware that methods directly involving yoga and hypnosis were not generally applicable or acceptable, he continued seeking universally acceptable means to tap the vast mental reserve capacities of the human mind we all have but which are rarely used. Suggestion proved to be the key.

Applications in the public schools have been impressive: eighteen schools in Bulgaria offered all subjects under Lozano’s supervision, and the results have been that children have learned the same amount of material as in control groups in less than half the time and with more enjoyment and less stress.

Dr.Georgi Lozanov of the Institute of Suggestology in Sofia, Bulgaria is, together with his colleagues, the originator of these techniques. SUGGESTOLOGY is the study of the power of suggestion which can be verbal, non-verbal, conscious or unconscious.

SUGGESTOPEDIA is the study of these suggestive factors in a learning situation.

We are constantly, surrounded by suggestive influences. If we study them and become aware of them, then we are in a better position to “choose” which ones we want to influence us. Lozanov maintains that a suggestopedic teacher spends most of the time de-suggesting the students, i.e., freeing them from any nonfacilitating influences from their past. From birth on we are influenced by parents, friends, teachers, society, the media, the weather, the food we eat and the political environment in which we live.

Successful classroom atmosphere

For a successful classroom atmosphere, Lozanov maintains these three elements should be present:

PSYCHOLOGICAL

A nurturing, supportive atmosphere in which the student feels free to try out the new information, be inventive with it, make mistakes without being put down, and, in general, enjoy the learning experience.

EDUCATIONAL

The material should be presented in a structured fashion, combining the Big Picture, Analysis and Synthesis. Every moment should be a didactic experience even when the learning process is not that apparent.

ARTISTIC

The classroom should not be cluttered with too many posters and unnecessary objects, otherwise we don’t see them. We go into overwhelm. Good quality pictures should be displayed and changed every few days. Music can be played as the students enter the room, and during the breaks. Plants and flowers add to a pleasant atmosphere. If the chairs are arranged in a U-shape, there is a better communication possible between the teacher and students and among the students themselves.

Music

Music as a suggestive, relaxing medium. Lozanov researched a wide variety of means for presenting material to be learned which would facilitate the mentally relaxed, receptive state of mind he had found to be optimal for learning.

Yoga exercises, breathing techniques, special speech intonations were all tried with varying degrees of success. None of them, however, was found acceptable by nearly all cultural norms and belief systems.

Music proved to be the ideal medium, both for the purpose or creating a mentally relaxed state and for providing a vehicle for carrying the material to be learned into the open, receptive mind.

Music can become a powerful facilitator of holistic full-brain learning. After conducting numerous controlled experiments using a wide variety of music, Lozanov concluded that music of the Classical and Early Romantic periods was most effective for the first presentation of material to be learned. The music of Hayden, Mozart and Beethoven is dramatic, emotionally engaging, and ordered, harmoniously structured. It stimulates, invites alertness, and its harmony and order evoke ease and relaxation. For the second concert presentation of material Lozanov found that Baroque music was especially suited. The music of Bach, Händel, Vivaldi, Telemann, Corelli (among others) has a less personal, more rigorously structured quality, providing a background of order and regularity which supports very well the more straight-forward presentation of material during the second concert.

Means of Suggestion

1. A carefully orchestrated physical environment: an uncrowded room, aesthetically pleasing, well lighted, plants, fresh air, ...

2. The teacher / doctor thoroughly trained in the art of suggestive communication -

a) with a well-developed sense of authority. (more details below)

b) the ability to evoke a receptive, playful-, child-like state in the students / patients

c) a mastery or double-plane behaviour, especially the ability to use appropriately and purposefully suggestive language, voice intonation, facial and body expression

3. Music:

4. Carefully integrated suggestive written materials.

5. Visual stimuli: posters, pictures, charts, illustrations.

The arts offer us the greatest examples of unified suggestive expression, and we should make every effort to integrate them into the learning environment.