SUGGESTOPAEDIA DESUGGESTOPAEDIA
EXPLOITING THE POWER OF SUGGESTION IN
COMMUNICATION
(TEACHING, COUNSELLING, THERAPY, ETC)
ORIGIN IN PSYCHOTHERAPY (1)
• Suggestion without hypnosis
• Psychotherapeutic effects of
wakeful suggestion
• Liberation of the personality from
the inhibitions suggested by the
social norm
• SUGGESTOLOGY : the science and
art of liberating the untapped
reserve capacities of the human
brain and psyche
ORIGIN IN PSYCHOTHERAPY (2)
• Influence from Carl Roger’s
school of psychoanalysis
(emphasis on the positive
aspects of the personality)
and Humanistic psychology
(self-fulfilment)
We can only facilitate
her /his learning.
Human beings have a
natural potential for
learning.
EARLY EXPERIMENTS : 1964
DEPARTMENT OF PSYCHIATRY OF THE
POSTGRADUATE MEDICAL INSTITUTE (1)
• teaching foreign language
vocabulary at a great volume
• 1000 lexical units per day
• aimed at provoking states of
hypermnesia
• used different techniques such as
rhythmic reading at the background
of classical music
Hypermnesia is
the result mainly
of a suggestive
setup directed
towards the
memory potential
EARLY EXPERIMENTS : 1964
DEPARTMENT OF PSYCHIATRY OF THE
POSTGRADUATE MEDICAL INSTITUTE (2)
• Results indicated assimilation of
at least 80% of the lexical units
for a period of 3 months
• longer lasting capacity for the
retrieval of the memorised
material, low fatigue levels and
considerable psycho-hygienic
and psycho-prophylactic
effects
Memorizing experiments
SUGGESTOLOGY
• “ Suggestology is the
comprehensive science of
suggestion in all its aspects
(psychological, physiological,
socio psychological, psycho
therapeutic, psycho hygienic,
pedagogical, artistic, cybernetic,
genetic and semiological.)
• Consequently, it is the science of
the accelerated harmonious
development and self –control of
man and his manifold talents.”
WHAT IS 'TENDER SUGGESTION'? (1)
“a universal communication
factor active at any point of
human interaction that
allows the personality to
make choices from among a
wide range of complex
stimuli based on both reason
and intuition at various
degrees depending on their
disposition.
WHAT IS 'TENDER SUGGESTION'? (2)
• The use of consciousunconscious stimuli, in such a
way that they are well-organized,
psychologically orchestrated and
harmonized with the personality,
may reveal the comprehensive
potential of the personality, and
also stimulate their creative
power.” (Dr. G. Lozanov,
Suggestology and
Suggestopaedia – theory and
practice)
FROM SUGGESTOLOGY TO
SUGGESTOPEADIA
• the application of the theory of
suggestive communication to teaching
• a Humanistic approach to education
(conviction in the potential to learn)
• a brain friendly approach to learning
(whole-brain))
• a systemic approach to teaching
aiming at the optimal orchestration of
stimuli and functions (conscious and
less conscious, logical and /affective
/intuitive/artistic)
• Effective-affective teaching and
learning
DR LOZANOV AND DR GATEVA
SCHOOL SUGGESTOPAEDIA
Creating Wholeness through Art.
Artistic songs in the process of teaching
The songs have artistically –didactic and
psychotherapeutic tasks (not just entertaining)
100-HOUR FL COURSES
FOR ADULTS (1)
• in the course of the intensive
foreign-language
suggestopaedic training
process, the trainees were in a
normal awake state and learnt
the material taught in a large
volume without feeling tired
and tense, in a state of mental
and physical relaxation.
100-HOUR FL COURSES
FOR ADULTS (2)
• this fact was confirmed
on the basis of the
frequency allocation of
the waves in the EEG
(alpha, beta, theta and
delta), as well as the
data from a number of
other indicators.
Adult courses in Viktorsberg
1991-1998
L.I.T.A. 2003-2009
AIMS
SUGGESTOPAEDIA – RESERVOPAEDIA
STIMULATES THE WHOLE HUMAN PERSONALITY AND
HELPS FULFIL ITS POTENTIAL
THE FUNCTIONAL UNITY OF THE
HUMAN BRAIN
• The emotional and motivational
complex, the capacity to think in
images and logical abstraction
should be simultaneously activated
in an inseparable unity.
• Education, however, being mostly
related to the cortex structures and
the brain’s left hemisphere, violates
man’s natural aptitude to perceive
and respond in both rational and
emotional ways.
THE RESERVE CAPACITIES
• Communicative competence at the
level of B1 / B2 within a 100 hours and
without any homework
• No fatigue or stress
• Hypermnesia
• Hyperactivity
• Creativity, motivation, new interests
• Positive attitude towards learning
• Appreciation of Art
• Inner stability, spontaneous recovery
from neuroses, allergies and
psychosomatic disorders
PRINCIPLES
•
•
•
•
•
1/ Joy and lack of tension
(concentrative relaxation – infantilization)
2/ Integral brain activity
(conscious – unconscious unity)
• 3/ Suggestive interrelation
• (parts-global themes)
HOW IT WORKS
SUGGESTOPAEDIC LOVE AND ‘FADING
SCAFFOLDING’ (LEO BRUNNER)
• motherly love
• full of faith and discreet support
• decreasingly provided to the
child/learner
• aiming at its autonomy and selfsufficiency
• infantilization of learners through
play like activities
• The bicycle metaphor’
SUGGESTOPAEDIC FREEDOM
• Respect to the learner’s free will
and choices; the learning material
is never imposed – only suggested
•Suggestopeadia aims at liberating the personality from:
• inhibitions and self-consciousness when it comes to
communicating in a foreign language; the fear of being criticized
when making mistakes and the fear of failure
•social prejudices suggesting that learning is difficult, sometimes
impossible, and always effortful and unpleasant.
• ‘didactogenic diseases’-school neuroses, stress, fatigue,
boredom
•emancipation from teachers and school curricula
THE TEACHER’S EXPECTATIONS
• The teacher truly expects all learners
to achieve the most of their learning
potential
• the basic principle of suggestive/desuggestive pedagogy is that each
individual has a wealth of untapped,
reserve capacities (some of them
related to learning)
• Faith in their own capacity to facilitate
learning
• Faith in the methodology
INCREASED VOLUME OF MATERIAL IN
LESS TIME
• Faith in the reserve
capacities
• Organisation of material
for easy decoding (use of
L1) according to the
principles of cognitive
constructivism
• Stress-free learning
environment
• Multi-sensory stimuli
addressed to multiple
intelligences
USE OF CLASSICAL ART AND
AESTHETICS
•
•
•
•
•
•
Affectivity
Creativity
Suggestiveness
Harmony
Beauty
Prestige
Art as a communicative phenomenon not only influences
but also provokes additional rich associations related to the specific
meaningful content.
Art might influence the whole personality – its intellectual
development,
mnemonic resources, emotional background and volitional
tendencies
THE GOLDEN PROPORTION
• Any two variables that are within a ratio of
0.6180339 are within the golden section
• Lessons are structured according to the
golden proportion (active vs. passive
activities)
• learning methodology which takes into
account central and peripheral stimuli alike
and in calculated proportions
• a systemic approach to teaching aiming at
the optimal orchestration of stimuli and
functions (conscious vs. less conscious,
logical vs. affective/ intuitive/artistic)
SOME EXAMPLES
GLOBAL-PARTIAL/PARTIAL-GLOBAL
APPROACH
• Focus on large language units first
• Balanced combination of
elements into meaningful wholes
• Shift of attention from whole to
parts and vice versa
• Fatigue and boredom are nonexistent because of the constant
interplay between active and
passive activities that engage the
whole personality and addressing
each individual separately as well
as the group as a whole
APPLICATIONS
Communication – Pedagogy - Medicine
BACKGROUND
THEORIES OF LEARNING AND COGNITION
CONSTRUCTIVISM
• Learning is the result of mental construction
• Constructing knowledge rather than acquiring it.
• Students fit in new information together with the old
one •
• Knowledge is (re)constructed – not transmitted •
• A theory that empasizes active learning
COGNITIVE CONSTRUCTIVISM
PIAGET, CHOMSKY
• the role of the mother tongue
young emergent bilinguals transfer prior
linguistic, metalinguistic and literacy
knowledge and skills to the new
language
• Communicative competence is given
priority over lexicosemantic
competence
• Shift from total to partial immersion
courses with maintenance of the
mother tongue
• bilingual – multilingual education
beyond CLIL
EXPERIENTIAL LEARNING (1)
there can be no applicable
linguistic knowledge without
life knowledge and no
language learning without
cultural-pragmatic clues
• Sapir, 1970: language is
inextricably linked to
experience
• Vygotsky, 1962: underlying
cognitive proficiency
• Bruner, 1986: joint culture
creation, chunks as scaffolds
EXPERIENTIAL LEARNING (2)
• inside-out approach:
reading based upon
personal and group
experiences
•
partial-global: from the
learner’s own knowledge
and experience to the world,
from the smallest units of
language to discourse
NATURAL APPROACH
• Based on the idea that
babies acquire language
by using it, not through
practizing sepatare parts.
• Distinction between
learning and acquisition
• Focus is on communication
Stephan Krashen
DESUGGESTOPEDIA - ASSUMPTIONS
• The process of suggestion
influences the increasing use of
the reserve capacities of the
brain and psyche.
• Learning is free from tension
• Learning includes conscious
and unconscious factors
CONTEXT
SUGGESTOPAEDIA IN THE FRAMEWORK OF FL
TEACHING
ACTIVE VS PASSIVE KNOWLEDGE
HOLISTIC APPROACHES TO LEARNING
Passive knowledge is extremely
useful
• makes it possible to read
appropriate texts quite early.
• makes it possible to
communicate quite early and
in quite a broad range. (big
reading and listening
comprehension)
• most often the path to active
knowledge goes through
passive knowledge. (psychophysiological fact)
OTHER FL LEARNING APPROACHES
• natural learning
• meaningful learning (adult literacy, Paolo
Freire)
• organic approach & collaborative books
(emotive learning, Ashton – Warner)
• breakthrough to reading English (skills
integration, Mackay, Thompson and
Schaub)
• integrated curricula
• interactive approaches (which the
bottom-up and top-down approaches
of the 20th century have evolved into)
• collaborative learning
• strategic interaction
• scenario-based instruction
• differentiated instruction
MEANS
SUGGESTIVE- ARTISTIC- DIDACTIC
SUGGESTIVE
• Prestige (of teacher, methodology,
materials)
• High expectations suggested by the
great volume of material
• Affective tone, intonation, rhythm,
gestures and mimics, the skilful use of
peripheral irritants, etc
• Infantilization (attitude of trust,
calmness and receptiveness similar to
the child’s tension-free emotional
perception and reaction to the world)
• Peripheral perceptions
• Concentrative psychorelaxation
ARTISTIC
• “A visual representation of
suggestion is art”
• Didactic Art:
•
•
•
•
•
•
didactic and authentic songs
classical and baroque music,
rhymes and literature,
artistic interpretation of texts/scripts,
mimes
role plays with particular
communicative tasks, etc
• These art tools are not an end in
themselves, but rather aim at
establishing a tight link between
perception and mastering the new
language elements
DIDACTIC
• Interconnections between themes
and between parts of the same
theme – connections between parts
and the whole
• No meaningless repetition – varied
repetition in different textual and
communicative contexts
• All newly acquired knowledge is
immediately utilized to solve
problems
• Suggestopaedic games – board
games, card games etc
• Carefully designed suggestopaedic
materials
MATERIALS (1)
Script (scenario to be acted out)
• carefully designed to teach story
grammar, chunks, graded
lexical and morphological clues
• respect to the artistic nature of
the literary genre
• inspiring learners to externalise
their deeper feelings and
internalise the feelings provoked
by the story, making the
experience strong and real lifelike
MATERIALS (2)
creating double-planeness with
regard to who has the control of
the outcome of the story
elaborating linguistic knowledge
through playful repetition,
games, songs, dance, drama
etc.
Card vocabulary (designed for playing board games)
Repetitions in different contexts and levels of word
meaning: emotional, peripheral meaning, contextual
meaning, cognitive decoding, associations, affective
moods, sound and music
PROPERTIES OF THE
SUGGESTOPAEDIC TEXT (1)
suggestopaedic translation
• underlined syntactic, lexical or
morphological units and their
equivalents in the mother tongue
• gapped translation as well as
gapped texts give opportunity for
syntactic transformations and
practice, for chunking as well as
for high level authentic
communication without resorting
to easily understandable lexis and
structure only
PROPERTIES OF THE SUGGESTOPAEDIC
TEXT (2)
suggestopaedic elaboration reading
• practice syntactic structures with
changing intonations, different words,
rephrasing and with personal meaning
• link language with experience
• exploit the transfer of the chunking
strategy spontaneously employed during
mother tongue acquisition
POSTERS – PERIPHERAL STIMULI
morphosyntactic phenomena
are modelled out for implicit
teaching and learning
• Lozanov (1977, 2006): both
conscious and unconcious
contextual features influence
reading and learning,
• involuntary attention and
memorisation are as important
as voluntary attention and
intentional learning
METHODOLOGY
THE SUGGESTOPAEDIC CYCLE
Presentation
• Introduction
• Active Concert
• Passive Concert
Activation (70%)
Transfer
FOREIGN LANGUAGE LEARNING
Young learners
Adults
are natural language
acquirers;
• they are self-motivated
to pick up language
without conscious
learning,
• They have the ability to
imitate pronunciation
and work out the rules
for themselves.
• Can acquire and learn
a language
• think more consciously
about language rather
than it being intuitive
• have a more difficult
time adapting the
pronunciation of a
foreign language
TEACHING OTHER SUBJECTS
• Integration of themes
• The individual themes need not only
follow each other coherently but also
reflect each other in various ways.
Aspects of each theme should be dealt
with during the elaboration of the
previous themes
• Each teaching objective should not be
dealt with in isolated themes but
throughout the cycle
• Integration of subjects
• During the teaching of each subject,
elements from the other subjects should
be introduced as well as examples from
real life
CHILDREN’S OPERAS TO TEACH MATHS
While watching these operas,
the children were introduced to
the maths curriculum
of the first school year and the
first half of the second
(peripheral perception defocused learning).
.
On the top left hand of the screen
there were sums such as 5 + 7 = 5 +5 + 2 = 12.
One opera lasted between 30 and 40 minutes
HIGH SCHOOL MATHEMATICS
A more emotional atmosphere is
introduced in the teaching of
those subjects which are
logically directed, and more
logical thinking without
devoiding the subject of its
specificity.
RESULTS
THE HIGH LEARNING OUTCOMES AND THE EXCEPTIONAL
PSYCHO-HYGIENIC EFFECT OF THE METHODOLOGY ON THE
PERSONALITY OF BOTH TEACHERS AND LEARNERS
THE UNESCO REPORT
• UNESCO Working Document
for the Expert Working Group
• (11-16 December 1978, Sofia)
• presented by the Bulgarian
National Commission for
UNESCO and the Bulgarian
Ministry of People Education
• ED –78/WS/119
THE UNESCO REPORT (2) P. 1
“ The accelerated
development of human
potential capacities
acquires great
importance today
because of the constant
increase of information,
mechanization and communication. This development
should not only be accelerated but, in order to achieve
a ‘humanitarian balance’ in present day technical
civilization, it ought to be harmonious as well. Therefore,
the process of instruction, education and
psychotherapy should be unified in one process based
on psycho physiological laws …”
THE VIENNA REPORT
1973 - 79
Dr. Beer (Head of the Pedagogical
Academy)
• Arithmetic: The teaching goal of
the first grade was certainly
reached, and second and third
grade material was also taught
successfully to first graders.
• Reading: The teaching goal in
reading for the first grade was
already achieved by the end of
the first semester.
THE COMMON EUROPEAN FRAMEWORK
FOR LANGUAGE LEARNING, TEACHING,
ASSESSMENT
PRINCIPLES AND GOALS
PHILOSOPHY
• Language as a means of communication
• Emphasis on communicative competence
• Holistic View of Communication
• Linguistic
• Sociolinguistic
• Pragmatic
• Holistic Approach to Learning
 Cognitive
 Emotional
 Volitional Resources
ACTION BASED APPROACH
• Learners as social agents in action
• Speech acts as communicative
acts
• Variety of text genres and modes
• Variety of domains of language use
• No specific methodology as long as
communicative acts are successful
• Communicative performance
vs. declarative knowledge
SKILLS AND ACTIVITIES
• Evaluation of communicative
performance
in different language activities
Listening
Reading
Spoken production
Spoken interaction
Writing

Oral and written mediation
from L1 to L2
CORRESPONDENCES BETWEEN CEF
AND LITA LEVELS
A2
Can understand sentences and frequently used expressions
related to areas of most immediate relevance (e.g. very
basic personal and family information, shopping, local
geography, employment).
Can communicate in simple and routine tasks requiring a
simple and direct exchange of information on familiar and
routine matters.
Can describe in simple terms aspects of his/her
background, immediate environment and matters in areas of
immediate need.
B2
• Can understand the main ideas of complex text on
both concrete and abstract topics, including
technical discussions in his/her field of specialisation.
• Can interact with a degree of fluency and
spontaneity that makes regular interaction with
native speakers quite possible without strain for either
party.
• Can produce clear, detailed text on a wide range of
subjects and explain a viewpoint on a topical issue
giving the advantages and disadvantages of various
options.
OUR EXPERIENCE
• Suggestopaedia stimulates the personality as a
whole: interests, perceptions, memory, intellectual
activity, creative development, attitudes to work
and study...
BIBLIOGRAPHY
• Lozanov, G. Suggestology and Outlines of Suggestopedia; Gordon
and Breach, New York,
• London, Paris, 1978
• Gateva, E. Creating Wholeness Through Art; Accelerated Learning
Systems Ltd., England,1991
• Dr. Franz Beer, published in the USA (The Journal of SuggestiveAccelerative Learning and Teaching. Volume 3, Issue 1, 1978, p.21)