Lozanov

Do you know him, or have you perhaps experienced his own sessions? We could have a very long and involved discussion about the doctor and his work: maybe if and when we meet...

He has his fans, and he has his detractors. My attitude is two-fold...

On the positive side: I respect him as a historical figure, as someone who helped get the learning revolution under way; he was the first person to see the value of a regularly-repeating cycle, and the two concert-readings in Suggestopedia have enormous value, both for learning and for general healing.

But there are other aspects.

His work is claimed as scientific, and as being based on thorough research: but I believe the scholarly world is agreed that it doesn't meet up to accepted standards of depth, objectivity, and demonstrability. This doesn't make the work invalid in itself - it has had great value as stimulus and inspiration: but it means that we may be skeptical when the unspecified 'results' are claimed as authoritative, and as the only truth.

To take one example, their 'tests' of the way different kinds of music work, appear to be based on a small and unrepresentative sample of the global 'population'. I'm specially conscious of this, since my own research

• reveals how and why European classical and pre-classical music works with European languages
• shows a great vista of possible repertoire Lozanov and Gateva couldn't know of
• gives an understanding which makes working with music in foreign-language teaching simpler and more effective
• shows where more investigation is needed (culturally, historically, geographically - I can write more if you're interested, of course)

Drs. Lozanov and Gateva showed us what was possible in the spirit of the Eastern Europe of the 1950's: but when applied in the West today ,this produces a hierarchical human dynamic and an authoritarian atmosphere and which many people find dissonant with the expressed aims of empowering the whole person.

We can say that Lozanov and Gateva were pioneers: but they don't have the last word. Life goes on: and fortunately we can build on their foundation and integrate it with what others have shown is possible since then and in other cultures: and then we can make our own discoveries of yet more new possibilities...

From Lynn Dorrity, for example, I learned an approach which took Lozanov's work as its starting point: but which in its effect is the antithesis of Lozanov's ambience: the experience of each individual learner is the authentic material we work with: and the almost tangible level of satisfaction and harmony which people exhibit as they come out of his workshops tells its own story...

It's an exciting world, an open world, a constantly developing world!!!