Key Features of Suggestopedia

A Teaching Method: Suggestopedia

Posted on June 12, 2011novaekasari

A Teaching Method: Suggestopedia

Written by:

Anggun Apriana (06081001022)

Mutiara Islamiyah (06081001038)

English Education Study Program

Sriwijaya University

INTRODUCTION

Teacher should be creative in using different kinds of teaching method. They have to choose an appropriate method to transfer the knowledge because they will find different situation and different students in the class.

Generally, students would not be able to believe that they could be successful in learning language. This lack of motivation has made students do not have confidence to speak in the target language because they do not want to make mistakes. Moreover, they find difficulties to recall the previous lesson, such us memorizing the new vocabularies. This situation encourages teacher to be creative and to use an effective method on teaching.

In addition, students have different type of learning style. They learn through their own learning style which are visual, auditory, or kinesthetic style. Those who are visual learn trough seeing and they need to see the teacher’s body language and learn best from visual displays. Then, those who are auditory learn through listening and they learn best through verbal lectures, discussions, talking things through, and listening to what others have to say. Besides, those who are kinesthetic learn through moving, doing, and touching, and learn best through a hands-on approach and actively exploring the physical world around them. In the class room, teacher will meet these three types of students. In order to make students could learn well through their own learning style, teacher is supposed to use an effective method of teaching different types of students.

Teacher should choose appropriate method of teaching different types of students, to cultivate students’ motivation, and to increase students’ memorizing ability. Suggestopedia is one of methods that can be used by teacher. It is a method that desuggests the limitations that students have to help them to believe that they could be successful in learning, so it can cultivate students’ motivation in learning. Then, it is one of methods which concerns to students’ learning style because there are visual display, audio, and physical involvements during learning process. Moreover, it involves emotional meaning in given the lesson which help students’ better in memorizing.

SUGGESTOPEDIA

A Brief History

Suggestopedia is a teaching method, which focuses on how to deal with the relationship between mental potential and learning ability and it is very appropriate to use in teaching speaking for young language learners (Xue, 2005). This method was introduced by a Bulgarian psychologist and educator, George Lazanov in 1975. Maleki (2005) believed that we are able of learning much more than we think, provided we use our brain power and inner capacities. In addition, DePorter (2008) assumed that human brain could process great quantities of material if given the right condition for learning in a state of relaxation and claimed that most students use only 5 to 10 percent of their mental capacity. Lazanov created suggestopedia for learning that capitalized on relaxed states of mind for maximum retention material.

Suggestopedia is an effective comprehensible input based method with a combination of desuggestion and suggestion to achieve super learning. The most important objective of suggestopedia is to motivate more of students’ mental potential to learn and which obtained by suggestion. Desuggestion means unloading the memory banks, or reserves, of unwanted or blocking memories. Suggestion then means loading the memory banks with desired and facilitating memories.

Lazanov (1978) cited in Lica (2008) argued that learners have difficulties in acquiring English as the second language because of the fear of the students to make mistakes. When the learners are in this situation, their heart and blood pressure raise. He believes that there is a mental block in the learners’ brain (affective filter). This filter blocks the input, so the learners have difficulties to acquire language caused by their fear. The combination of desuggestion and suggestion is to lower the affective filter and motivate students’ mental potential to learn, aim to accelerate the process by which they learn to understand and use the target language for communication to achieve super learning. It is the final goal of suggestopedia.

Theory of Language

Lozanov does not articulate a theory of language, nor does it seem he is much concerned with any particular assumptions regarding language elements and their organization. Lozanov emphasizes the importance of experiencing language material in “whole meaningful texts” (Lozanov 1978:268) and notes that the suggestopedia course directs “the student not to vocabulary memorization and acquiring habits of speech, but to acts of communication” (Lozanov 1978:109). Lozanov refers most often to the language to be learned as “the material.”

Theory of Learning

Suggestion is at the heart of Suggestopedia. Lozanov claims that his method is different from hypnosis and other forms of mind control because they lack a “desuggestive-suggestive sense” and “fail to create a constant set up to reserves through concentrative psycho-relaxation” (1978:267). (Reserves are like human memory banks) There are some principal theoretical components through which desuggestion and suggestion operate and that set up access to reserves.

Key Features of Suggestopedia

1. Comfortable environment

In suggestopedia method, the classroom is not the same as common classrooms. In the classroom, the chairs are arranged semicircle and faced the black or white board in order to make the students pay more attention and get more relaxed. In addition, the light in the classroom is dim in order to make the students’ mind more relaxed (Xue, 2005).

1. The use of music

One of the most uniqueness of this method is the use of Baroque music during the learning process. Baroque music, with its 60 beats per minute and its specific rhythm, created the kind of relaxed states of mind for maximum retention of material. It is believed that Baroque music creates a level of relaxed concentration that facilitates the intput and retention of huge quantities of materials. Baroque music helps the students to reach a certain state of relaxation, in which the receptivity is increased (Radle, 2008). The increasing of learning potential is put down to the increase of alpha brain and decreasing of blood preasure and heart rate. The use of music also depends on the expected skill of the students: listening, grammar, pronunciation, discussion, etc.

1. Peripheral Learning

The students learn English not only from direct instruction but also from indirect instruction. It is encouraged through the presence in the learning environment of posters and decoration featuring the target language and various grammatical information. They are changed everyday. By doing this, the students can learn many things undirectly in the classroom or outside classroom. For example, students can produce simple sentence by using the posters or grammatical information on the wall.

1. Free Errors

In the teaching learning process, students who make mistakes are tolerated, for example in pronouncing the word. The emphasis is on the content not the structure. Grammar and vocabularies are presented and given treatment from the teachers, but not dwelt on.

1. Homework is limited

Students reread materials given in the classroom once before they go to sleep at night and once in the morning before they get up.

1. Music, drama and art are integrated in the learning process

They are integrated as often as possible.

Design

Objective

Suggestopedia aims to deliver advance conversational proficiency quickly. It apparently bases its leaning claims on student mastery of prodigious lists of vocabulary pairs and indeed, suggests to the students that it is appropriate that they set such goals for themselves. Lozanov states categorically, “the main aims of teaching is not memorization, but the understanding and creative solution of problem”. As learners goals he cited increased access an understanding and creative solution of problem. However, because students and teachers place a high value on vocabulary recall, memorization of vocabulary pairs continues to be seen as an important goal to the suggestopedia method.

The syllabus

A suggestopedia course last thirty days and consist of ten units of study. Classes are held four hours a day, six days a week. The central focus of each unit is a dialogue consisting of 1,200 words or so, with an accompanying vocabulary list and grammatical commentary. The dialogues are graded by lexicon and grammar.

There is a pattern of work within each unit and a pattern of work for the whole course. Unit study is organized around three days: day 1 – half a day, day 2 – full day, day 3 – half a day. One of the first day of work on a new unit the teacher discusses the general content (not structure) of the unit dialogue. The learners then receive the printed dialogue with the native language translation in parallel column. The teacher answers any questions of interest or concern about the dialogue. The dialogue then is read the second and third time in ways to be discussed sub sequently.

The whole course also has a pattern of presentation and performance. On the first day a test is given to check the level the students’ knowledge and to provide a basis for dividing students into two groups, one of new beginners and one of modified (false) beginners. The teacher then briefs the students on the course and explains the attitude they should toward it.

During the course there are two opportunities for generalization of material. In the middle of the course students are encouraged to practice the target language in a setting where it might be used, such as hotels and restaurants. The last day of the course is devoted to a performance in which every student participates. The students construct a play built on the material of the course.

Date: 2016-04-22; view: 1562