suggestopedia

Suggestopedia is a teaching method developed by the Bulgarian psychotherapist Georgi Lozanov. The method has been used in different fields of studies but mostly in the field of foreign language learning.

"Suggestopedia" is
Not Hypnosis

Lozanov, once a hypnotist himself, now strongly opposes against use of hypnosis. He has realized the danger of hypnosis and being hypnotized (Lozanov 1978). In the process of refining his own Suggestopedia with Evelina Gateva, he has removed all elements that may induce "hypnotical states" of mind.
Lozanov defines hypnotic situation as being taken one's freedom and creativity away by a hypnotic dictator. Every teaching method that uses "order", "guidance", "Monotonous intonation" and "monotonous rhythm" may cause hypnotic states.

Not Superlearning
The authors of "Superlearning" have never been trained by Lozanov. The book was written with limited information acquired from a short observation of Lozanov's experimental research. Hence, there is a lot of misunderstandings in the book.

Not NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming)
Lozanov denies any kind of manipulation on ones personality, even if it would "program" however positive or optimistic way of thinking. Suggestopedia sees "programming" is a product of "dictation" and "manipulation" that, like hypnosis, inhibits freedom of personality.

Not using a reclining chair, or a sofa.
A Suggestopedia class uses a room with a central round table and ordinary chairs surrounding the table. It never uses reclining chairs to lay down students and make them listen to a teacher's voice. Such an activity may cause hypnotic states.

Not using "breathing exercise"
Lozanov has never introduced a breathing exercise in his Suggestopedia. Such an exercise may cause hypnotic states.

Not using "visualization exercise"
Lozanov calls such an exercise as "guided fantasy". He regards this kind of guided fantasy in which people are forced to visualize some image is a hypnosis.

Not using "alpha wave" enhance exercise
"Alpha wave" is not a special brain wave. It appears only by closing eyes. It is meaningless to create a monotonous or fixed brain wave for the learning. Such an exercise may cause hypnotic states.

Not using "slow baroque" music in the concert reading
Suggestopedia uses baroque music pieces in the second or "passive" concert session. However it never uses a "slow baroque" or a music piece written as "adagio". It is simply because Suggestopedia does not want students to fall asleep in the concert session. Rather, it uses faster and livelier pieces to stimulate a whole brain.
In the first or "active" concert session, it uses even more lively pieces of classical music. The music list includes a quite dramatic piece such as Beethoven's piano concerto No.5.

Not using rap music in the concert reading
Suggestopedia uses the power of the selected (scientifically proven) pieces of classical music because of its artistically harmonized colorful melody, rhythm, and emotion that stimulates all levels of mind as it changes from time to time. Music dominated by a monotonous rhythm and beat, such as rap music, may cause hypnotic states.

Not only a group of teaching techniques
Teaching techniques are meaningless if applied without full comprehension of the theory. For example, giving a set of concert reading sessions in the traditional setting language classroom doesn't work.

Not able to teach without a teacher
Suggestopedia uses a lot of emotion in the classroom to stimulate all levels of human "personality" that works in coordination of consciousness and paraconsciousness. Self study can never receive such a global stimuli.

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