This month, we talk
to an international Suggestopedic master trainer who is a founder-president
of France's National Council of Suggestology, a founding member of Sweden's
Suggestopedic Academy and an accredited DGSL (Germany) and IAL (US)
Level III trainer.
What
is Suggestopedia?
Suggestopedia
is a revolutionary teaching approach that speeds up learning by activating
and harnessing reserve capacities in the unconscious mind. Students
are put in a highly stimulating, multi-sensory - but psychologically
safe! - environment with lots of music (classical and baroque), artwork
and movement. In an atmosphere that is both theatrical and playful,
students are challenged with tasks that are pitched at about 120 per
cent of their usual maximum ability. This tends to induce "flow
state" - a very favourable form of concentration that shuts out
distracting thoughts. They are given unconditional support by teachers,
who create the conditions for "miracles" to happen and then
get out of the way to let students take ownership of these. All negative
suggestions (boring routine, shame in making mistakes, etc.) are eliminated,
and positive suggestions (an excitement in discovering new things, an
anticipation of upcoming surprises, and so on) replace these. The basic
principle is that nothing succeeds as well as success, and so it is
the teacher's role to devise ingenious (and even devious!) ways of getting
learners to surprise themselves at how successful they are. Activities
are quick-moving and energizing and typically change every seven or
eight minutes.
Can
you give us an example of an activity?
To teach
students that they must add an "s" to the "he/she/it"
forms in the present simple, I have the class stand in a circle, and
I announce: I like the sun." I throw an inflatable ball to a student
and prompt him to say, "Lonny likes the sun and I like..."
That student might say "sports"; he then throws the ball to
a third student who says: "Lonny likes the sun, Hans likes sports,
and I like long dresses." This chain game goes on with everyone
focused on the names of the students, their favoured objects, and the
order in which the ball has been thrown. They are using the correct
grammar while they're focused on other constraints of the activity -
and thus the important information is reaching them peripherally.
How
did your interest in Suggestopedia start?
I was
feeling very discouraged one autumn day in 1976, when it struck me that
my next holidays were still another nine months off. Somehow, I knew
that sheer willpower just wasn't going to get me through the school
year: the choice for me was either to get out of teaching or to find
some way to make my work truly meaningful. Someone talked to me about
Suggestopedia; I went to Ottawa to see a Canadian government French
programme using this method, and I was blown away. I came back to France
and started working with the only trained person in western Europe,
Fanny Saféris.
Any
future plans or dreams?
To create
an entirely new culture of communication that instils confidence in
others, sparks curiosity and fosters an insatiable craving to know more
and live more fully. I'd like for people to leave my courses and be
"on fire" for the rest of their lives.