Suggestopedia in ESL Teaching
 

I am not trying to sound intelligent. But please, What is suggestopedia? How does this theory of language learning translate into your ESL teaching? I read that it was brought about by a Romanian philosopher. I understand it to mean that language learning is faster when students are relaxed.
What are counter-theories to suggestopedia? You know the deal with most theories - they are popular for a decade or two before someone counters them with another one, telling you it is the new key to learning a language faster. With so many different types of learners can we really have one method that caters for all needs? What in your opinion is the fastest way of learning a new language? Would you build a language school around suggestopedia?

Re: Suggestopedia in ESL Teaching
 

Just to answer your first question - I'll leave the rest for the others. Suggestopaedia is a method initially developed by a Bulgarian doctor, Georgi Lozanov, in the 1960s. After working on the use of suggestion in medicine, he applied the ideas to learning. It's based on the idea that we are conditioned to believe that learning is "hard" and that we may fail -and that if we believe that, then our minds will make it a reality. (Parallel that with the story - possibly apocryphal, but it makes the point - of a man who got locked overnight in a deep freeze truck and died of hypothermia. Only at the time the refrigeration was not turned on. But he believed that he was going to freeze to death and his mind created the physical reality.)
So suggestopaedia uses relaxation, positive suggestion and other techniques (eg the tone of the T's voice and games) to overcome those barriers and to replace the negative beliefs with beliefs that learning will be enjoyable and successful. It also uses baroque music, which is said to stimulate a certain type of electrical activity in the brain which is conducive to learning, particularly subconscious intake.

There have been various offshoots of Suggestopaedia, with names like Accelerated Learning and Superlearning. If you're really interested then I recommend this thesis which discusses all the methods and the theories behind them. It's long, but you can always read the conclusion first and then pick out the bits that most interest you - have a look at Chapters 2 and 3 for instance.

I'm not a trained suggestopaedia teacher and I'd never claim to teach via the method. But I do use a lot of the techniques, particularly relaxation, positive suggestion, and listening to dialogues with a background of baroque music, as part of my "ordinary" repertoire of teaching techniques, and find them extremely useful. I'm not making any claims for them as "magic methods" - I don't think such things exist - but they do improve the classroom dynamic and the individual students' attitudes towards language learning. And that can only be positive.

Re: Suggestopedia in ESL Teaching
 

If you got 30 minutes, here's a podcast on it.
ESL Teacher Talk » Blog Archive » Teaching Methodologies - Suggestopedia

covering:
* what suggestopedia is
* how does a suggestopedia lesson run
* the principles of the method
* what are the main benefits, claims, and criticisms of the method

Re: Suggestopedia in ESL Teaching
 

I had not heard of "suggestopedia" before here and it seems interesting. I try to apply some of those techniques in my classes. I find that my students tend to learn more when they are comfortable and happy. I also find that people we think positively tend to do better. I think that it has a lot of great points. Thanks for sharing. :)

Re: Suggestopedia in ESL Teaching
 

Thanks Susan and Mark for adding and expanding my knowledge of the subject. I took a look at Accelerated learning and found quite a lot I could use. I think some of those techniques of suggestopedia are worth being incorporated into our ESL/EFL training and to be honest, I believe there are lots of teachers like me who use them without actually knowing anything about the theory. I wonder whether there are similar theories or even counter theories. I guess it is by looking at several language theories and judging from personal experience that we can really know what works or not. Thanks guys for your input. Please do feel free to contribute on this subject.