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Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) is a heady branch of neuroscience devoted to studying how the mind makes connections between the spoken word and its internal reasoning. For example if you say “I can’t do this,” you’re conditioning your brain to accept defeat, whereas if you say “I might be able to do this later,” you’re conditioning your brain to be positive in finding a solution.
NLP has applications in psychotherapy, among other branches of psychology. It’s been applied in the treatment of phobias, depression, compulsions, and hypnosis. While it’s considered to be on the fringe of scientific understanding currently, most experts agree that there is some credence to NLP ideas. The fact that some people form pseudo-science ideas based on it needn’t concern the science, just like the existence of astrologers don’t detract from the study of astronomy.
“Suggestopedia” is a new application of NLP in language courses. It breaks with the tradition of rote repetition learning by encouraging the students to learn in harmony with each other, and by learning a language more organically. Exercises in the classroom include listening to the teacher speak in a relaxed manner over music, or doing exercises in the class together that apply new words in context. Suggestopedia is also called “super learning” for its impact on language studies.
Aware of the potential of the Suggestopedy, we offer a super learning Spanish course, individually or in duo. And beyond this course, we seek ways to apply some of the knowledge of super learning in all other courses offered by the school, so that language learning becomes most effective and fun. In fact, Begoña Llovet, director of Tandem, introduced this method in Spain in 1990, and since then is part of the way we think about language teaching.
If there were ever a ripe learning approach to apply to language learning, NLP and Suggestopedia are it. The human brain is very grounded in how it verbalizes ideas; we literally cannot grasp a concept until we’ve figured out the proper words to phrase it. Learning a new language is different from learning math or science, because the brain has to go back over what it already knows in its mother tongue and assign new symbols to old concepts. This raises a hurdle to language learning, and is one of the reasons that multilingual speakers are relatively rare. NLP and super-learning help break that hurdle.
One important fact to note in lingual studies is that children exposed to several different languages early in their childhood have an easier time with multiple languages later on. This goes to show that the young mind, not yet beset by impressions and patterns, is open to grasping the concept that many symbols may be attached to the same concept. The early brain then prepares itself to learn multiple words for the same idea. NLP is, in a way, an attempt to return the mind to that open, easily-molded state, through appealing to the subconscious as well as conscious cognitive processes.
We still have a long way until we can fully understand the human mind and the potential of NLP and Suggestopedia. For this reason, we believe that the acquisition of practical experience by using them in language teaching, can help us to move faster towards a more humane and harmonic education.
Please contact us if you’re interested in more information about our super learning course. We offer other innovative Spanish courses that use Suggestopedia.
Related information on Neurolinguistic Programming: INLP Center
