summary of Desuggestopedia

Summary of Desuggestopedia


INTRODUCTION
Suggestopedia is now called Desuggestopedia to reflect the importance placed on desuggesting limitations on learning (Lozanov and Miller, personal communication). The originators of this method, Georgi Lozanov, believes as does Silent Way’s Caleb Gattegno, that language learning can occur at a a much faster rate than ordinarily transpires. Desuggestopedia, the application of the study of suggestion to pedagogy, has been developed to help students eliminate the feeling that they cannot be successful or the negative association they may have toward studying and, thus, to help them overcome the barriers to learning.

REVIEWING THE PRINCIPLES

1. What are the goals of teachers who use Desuggestopedia?
Teachers hope to accelerate the process by which students learn to use a foreign language for everyday communication. In order to do this, more of the students’ mental powers must be tapped.
2. What is the role of the teacher? What is the role of the students?
The teacher is an authority in the classroom. In order for the method to be successful, the students must trust and respect her. Once the students trust the teacher, they can feel more secure. If they feel secure, they can be more spontaneous and less inhibited.
3. What are some characteristic of the teaching/learning process?
A Desuggestopedia course is conducted in a classroom which is bright and cheerful. Students select target language names and choose new occupations. The texts student work from handouts containing lengthy dialogs (as many as 800 words) in the target language. The teacher presents the dialog during two concerts which comprise the first major phase (the receptive phase).
4. What is the nature of student-teacher interaction? What is the nature of student-student interaction?
The teacher initiates interactions with the whole group of students and with individuals’ right from the beginning of a language course.
5. How are the feelings of the students dealt with?
It is considered important in this method that the psychological barriers that students bring with then be desuggested.
6. How is the language viewed? How is culture viewed?
Language is the first of two planes in the two-plane process of communication. In the second plane are the factors which influence the linguistic message. The culture which students learn concerns the everyday life of people who speak the language.
7. What areas of language emphasized? What language skills are emphasized?
Vocabulary is emphasized. Grammar is dealt with explicitly but minimally. Speaking communicatively is emphasized. Students also read in the target language and write.
8. What is the role of the students’ native language?
Native-language translation is used to make the meaning of the dialog clear. As the course proceeds, the teacher uses the native language less and less.
9. How is evaluation accomplished?
Evaluation usually is conducted on the students’ normal in-class performance and not through formal tests.
10. How does the teacher respond to student errors?
Errors are corrected gently, with the teacher using a soft voice.

REVIEWING THE TECHNIQUES AND THE CLASSROOM SET-UP
Classroom set-up
The challenge for the teacher is to create a classroom environment which is bright and cheerful. These conditions are not always possible. However, the teacher should try to provide as positive an environment as possible.
Peripheral learning
This technique is based upon the idea that we perceive much more in our environment than that to which we consciously attend. It is claimed that, by putting posters containing grammatical information about the target language on the classroom walls, students will absorb the necessary facts effortlessly.
Positive suggestion
It is the teacher’s responsibility to orchestrate the suggestive factors in a learning situation, thereby helping students break down the barriers to learning that they bring with them.
Choose a new identity
The students choose a target language name and a new occupation. The students have an opportunity to develop a whole biography about their fictional selves.
Role play
Students are asked to pretend temporarily that they are someone else and to perform in the target language as if they were that person.
First concert (active concert)
The two concerts are components of the receptive phase of the lesson. The students have copies of the dialog in the target language and their native language and refer to it as the teacher reading. Music is played. After a few minutes, the teacher begins a slow, dramatic reading, synchronized in intonation with the music.
Second concert (passive concert)
In the second phase, the students are asked to put their script aside. They simply listen as the teacher reads the dialog at a normal rate of speed. At the conclusion if this concert, the class ends for the day.
Primary activation
The students playfully reread the target language dialog out loud, as individuals or in groups. In the lesson we observed, three groups of students read parts of the dialog in a particular manner: the first group, sadly; the next, angrily; the last, cheerful.
Creative adaptation
The students engage in various activities designed to help them learn the new material and use it spontaneously. The important thing is that the activities are varied and do not allow the students to focus on the form of the linguistic message, just the communicative intent.