The Theory of Suggestopedia

These Principles and Conditions (later called the Seven Laws) form the basis of every desuggestopedic teaching and learning communication. “They are so closely intertwined that they must also be simultaneously respected at all times during the teaching process” (2*).

1. Love

• Love creates serenity, trust and contributes to the prestige of the teacher in the eyes of the students and thus opens the ways of tapping the reserves in the personality`s paraconsciousness. Love cannot be played as the students will feel that. But it should not be understood as some sentimental, soft mood, since this attitude brings about negative reactions. (2*)
• The teacher`s love to the learners can be best illustrated by means of the metaphor of a mother or father teaching their children how to ride a bicycle without the child being able to tell at each moment whether the parent is holding the bicycle from behind or not.
• Suggestopedia / Reservopedia is an art of teaching and learning, where all the reserves of personality are being tapped with love (1* page 4)
• “The release of the suggestopedic reserve complex can be achieved only if there is LOVE for the human being.” (1*, page 13)
• In the pedagogy of the hidden reserves of mind, this spontaneously absorbed, non-manipulative type of suggestion has been insured through the first law of Suggestopedia/ Reservopedia – Love. (1*, page 53)
• It is well known that no fine accomplishments have been made in this world without love. Love is also an essential condition for accessing the reserves of mind. Love creates serenity, trust and contributes to the prestige of the teacher in the eyes of the students and thus opens the ways of tapping the reserves in the personality’s paraconsciousness. Love cannot be played as the students will feel that. But it should not be understood as some sentimental, soft mood, since this attitude brings about negative reactions. Love should be experienced as genuine love for the human being. We do not advise any teacher to start working at the level of the reserves if they do not possess sincere, humanistic love. They should better wait until they reconsider the teaching process of communication as an expression of love. In Suggestopedia/ Reservopedia, the teacher’s love to the learners can be best illustrated by means of the metaphor of a mother or father teaching their children how to ride a bicycle without the child being able to tell at each moment whether the parent is holding the bicycle from behind or not. (1*, page 56)
• Love, together with the other laws, creates the necessary cheerful, genuine and highly stimulating concentrative relaxation. (1*, page 57)
• Love, for example, can suddenly make a person who to us used to be just another element of the community, into a whole universe giving meaning to our life. (1*, page 76)
• Love alone cannot achieve high results – one needs a method plus love.
• Due to the fact that the first law of Suggestopedia/ Reservopedia is LOVE, which is present at every moment of the teaching-learning process and helps the harmonization of both students and teacher, Reservopedia / suggestopedia is not only a psychotherapeutic method but a psychohygienic one too. (1* page 193)

2. Freedom

• When there is Love, there is Freedom. Freedom empowers the teacher to exercise his /her judgement and personal decisions within the main reservopedic framework of the lesson to adapt it to the traits of each group. It also allows the students to choose whether to take part in some activities such as a game, a song, etc. that might not be in harmony with their disposition. They are also free at any moment to go out of the classroom without, of course, disturbing the work of the group. The principle of freedom is one of the most basic elements which distinguish Reservopedia from hypnosis. (1*, page 57)
• Freedom gives the opportunity to the student to listen to their inner voice and to choose their way to the reserves of mind at different moments of the process of instruction. Freedom is not being dictated by the teacher, it is a spontaneous feeling in the student that they do not obey the methodology but are free to enjoy it and give personal expression in accordance with their personal traits, i.e. Reservopedia is not an imposition; on the contrary, it is opening the door to personal expression.  (1*, page 58)
• Now with the term “Desuggestion” it is easier to understand that it is not possible to link hypnosis with Suggestopedia/ Reservopedia for it refers essentially to the freedom of personality, to inner freedom. (1*, page 14)
• In our search, we came to the concept of spontaneously absorbed communicative suggestion with which the patient had the right and freedom to choose, accept or reject the suggestion of the physician or the experimenter. (1*, page 36)
• In our long-term research for a way to organize in a harmonious and synchronized way the reception of non-specific stimuli while respecting the student’s (or the patient’s) freedom of choice, we have come to the development of a new type of communication without commands and non-critical automatic obedience. (1*, page 52)
• When we began to develop Suggestopedia by means of non-manipulative suggestion, i.e. totally preserving personal freedom of choice (to suggest = to offer, to propose), it was important for us to monitor what happens with clinical suggestibility. (1*, page 92)
• Freedom gives the opportunity to the student to listen to their inner voice and to choose their way to the reserves of mind at different moments of the process of instruction. Freedom is not being dictated by the teacher, it is a spontaneous feeling in the student that they do not obey the methodology but are free to enjoy it and give personal expression in accordance with their personal traits (2*)

3.  Conviction of the Teacher that Something Unusual is Taking Place

• The state of conviction that something extraordinary, different from the social suggestive norm, is taking place with no fail, leads to the state of inspiration of the teacher. This inner jubilation is reflected in the peripheral perceptions of the teacher and perceived by and created in the students. What is particularly important is that this set-up is spontaneously created by the teacher’s state of mind and the students happily resonate with it, most often subconsciously. This is how the so-called suggestive relationship is created at the level of the reserve complex. (1*, page 58)
• It is a mutual process of teacher’s expectations affecting the expectations of the learners, i.e. expectations create expectations, and this happens naturally, spontaneously, without any force. (1*, page 59)
• The teacher’s expectations are both about his/her own ability to activate the reserve capacities of the learners as well as about the learner’s ability to learn at the level of the reserves. These expectations can be felt by the learners through the peripheral perceptions and unconscious signals arising from the teacher’s voice, facial expression and their overall nonverbal behaviour. (1*, page 59)
• The Pygmalion-in-the-classroom effect is due to the expectations of the teachers that they have been given a class of gifted and clever pupils to work with. Such classes achieve better results because of a number of effects in the behaviour of the teachers who have raised positive expectations. (1*; 97)
• The study material in a one-month course of foreign language teaching must always be at least two times more voluminous than a typical similar language course. In fact, such a suggestopedic course for beginners will comprise 2000 to 2500 lexical units, surely going much beyond the minimal requirement of study material volume. This proportion holds good for the other subjects too. If the traditional norm changes with time, in a few years or generations, the reservopedic course must also be modified for the constant stimulation of the evolution. Taking into consideration that a number of national and international expert commissions have confirmed that the methodology has a psychotherapeutic, psychohygienic, educational effect, it is more than sure that we should not let the big volume of study material be decreased. (2*)

4. Manifold Increase of Input

• In Reservopedia, the study material presented to students in a specific time frame, must be, as a minimum, at least 2 to 3 times (times, not percent) larger in volume than the existing established norm by the other methodologies. (1*, page 59)
• If, in the reservopedic framework, the study material is kept within the traditional boundaries, it will only confirm and reinforce the suggestive social norm about the limited capacity of the human being. Thus, evolution will be delayed. (1*, page 59)

5. Global-Partial, Partial-Global; Partial through Global

• In all subjects, when the new study material is taught, there must not be a separation between the element and its whole. They must never be taught and learned in an isolated mode. For example, the words, grammar etc., do not exist separately from the language; they are part of the discourse. Each global is part of a bigger global and thus it goes to infinity. (1*, page 59)
• From a philosophical point of view, there is the great theory that the whole is in the part and that the part is in the whole; they are indivisible. There are no isolated entities. That is why when learning, the element is to be learned together with the whole. The global gives additional nuances to the element. The atom reflects the laws of the Universe and the Universe is in the atom. (1*; page 60)
• In all the stages, the introduction, the concert sessions, the elaboration and the performance, the study material is always presented and developed in such a way that the element and its whole are always kept in unity. For example, the content is incorporated and takes its meaning in a global context such as a story; through peripheral perceptions, the elements are perceived and assimilated in long term memory simultaneously with the global; in activations, the teacher will attract the attention to specific elements such as verb tenses while maintaining its unity with the global context of the sentence and the story. Hence the global-partial and partial-global law is always respected. (1*, page 68)
• The classical painting art form, which is most often used in reservopedic textbooks, embodies an artistic concept which maintains the unity of the global with its components, rather than conceptualising art as an illustration of separate objects. The law: global-partial, partial-global is best exemplified by means of the classical painting aft form, i.e. illustrations in textbooks. The illustrated individual objects in traditional pedagogy are separated from the whole and the principle of global-partial, partial-global is violated. Not all objects appearing in the texts have been exemplified in a classical painting. However, the latter suggests the global direction. In this way, the whole and the components can be really absorbed simultaneously. (1*, page 86)

6. The Golden Proportion

• The Golden Proportion reveals a law of harmony in the universe to which the reservopedic teaching and learning process of all subjects must be submitted. Harmony inspires harmony and overcomes the psychic chaos often provoked by traditional pedagogy. Harmony is essential in the process of teaching and learning such a big volume of study material in a short period of time. The relations among the parts and the whole are in a golden proportion in the reservopedic process of communication. Learning capacity is enhanced when the teaching process artfully finds the proper balance with respect to rhythms, intonations, emotional stimulus, etc. (2*)
• Suggestopedia, especially in   its   final   version   of   desuggestive, deprogramming   and ‘acquisition’ of knowledge, skills and habits, is the only method which complies with the laws of the GOLDEN PROPORTION (1*; page 61)
• In the end, a lasting concern of the teacher is to develop an intuitive sense of the harmonious eternal proportions and observe these wherever possible for him/her. If the Golden Proportion is not respected, students and teachers will feel tired. The slightest signs for such a state should be the signal for the teacher to change and to re-establish the harmony in the process of teaching and learning. (1*, page 82)
• The dynamic of the teaching process should always respect the taw of harmony proposed by the Golden Proportion. (1*, page 198)

7. Use of Classical Art and Aesthetics

• Reservopedic art creates conditions for optimal psycho-relaxation and harmonious states which help create a spontaneously increased acquisition state and enhance the capacity to tap the reserves of mind in a pleasant atmosphere. It aids reaching the state of inspiration and declines the attention from the “ill place” where there is fear associated with learning. Classical art is introduced through specially selected works in classical music, through songs and arias, literary selections, reproductions of masterpieces, etc. (2*)
• Classical art and aesthetics are used in Reservopedia as especially effective mediators of non-manipulative communicative suggestion because of their capacity to emit an indefinite number of non-specific stimuli which nourish the abundance of peripheral perceptions unnoticeable to the senses functioning through conscious awareness. Reservopedic art creates conditions for optimal psycho-relaxation and harmonious states which help create a spontaneously increased acquisition state and enhance the capacity to tap the reserves of mind in a pleasant atmosphere. It aids reaching the state of inspiration and diverts the attention from the “ill place” where there is fear associated with learning. Classical art is introduced through specially selected works in classical music, through songs and arias, literary selections, reproductions of masterpieces, etc. (1*, pages 60,61)

The following quotes are taken from:

(1*) Dr. Lozanov’s latest publication: Georgi Lozanov: Suggestopedia / Reservopedia – Theory and Practice of the Liberating Stimulating Pedagogy on the Level of the Hidden Reserves of the Human Mind (ISBN 97 8-954-07 -2936-7St. Kliment Ohridskí University Press)

and

(2*) The Seven Laws (Conditio Sine Qua Non) of Suggestopedia / Reservopedia. Download as PDF