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The Language Teacher | |||
In Finland last June, at a Therapy and NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming) conference, Murphey overheard a therapist asking Joseph O'Conner to explain NLP to him as if he were 10 years old. Murphey leaned closer and really wanted to hear this one. He wanted to see how he could do it. He wanted to feel what it was like to be that ten year old for just a moment. And what Joseph said was really fascinating. Admittedly, things may be new and strange when at first we start to learn them. Honestly doubting, searching, and questioning (like the therapist above) get us involved in openly trying to understand new ideas and often result in us learning more than we could ever imagine. Resistance too is an admirable thing and it can teach us a lot and balance our perspective. A part of us might not like new ideas, while another part might be hungry for them. It is also very useful to observe yourself when you are learning, and learn from the different emotions you have. As our colleague Bill Acton says, "NLP is still basically a village workshop art, a close encounter of the first kind, when it works as it should; when it goes to paper it is in danger of becoming too uni-dimensional and linear." Thus, we strongly advise going to a few introductory NLP sessions, or at least seeing some good videos (see the Annotated Bibliography in this issue for videos, books, trainings, and WWW sites). One basic premise of this issue is that teachers can be more responsible and accountable for what we suggest to our students, both explicitly and implicitly. We can realize the transformational potential of our classroom communication and create more and deeper learning. The discussion of the ideas of NLP, Educational Hypnosis, and Suggestopedia and their applications to language teaching should not be construed as a blanket endorsement of any of these fields. Rather like a traditional western doctor who is admitting there is something to herbal medicine, massage, meditation, and acupuncture, we are also allowing ourselves to find certain veracity and utility in the constructs of these disciplines which can be exceedingly helpful to us, without becoming a devotee. The best way to assess their usefulness is simply to consider how you might refocus your teaching based on what you read here. Consider any recommendations (this one, too) as interesting hypotheses which you can allow your own experience in the classroom to verify when you actually try them out. Starting out this issue, Murphey (who to our knowledge taught the first NLP Practitioner's course in Japan in l993) and Bolstad (who taught the first NLP Master Practitioner's Course here in August l996 with his partner Margot Hamblett) describe the budding NLP-inspired field of Educational Hypnosis, looking at the suggestive communication which is part of any teacher's discourse whether they know it or not. Then Bolstad, a full time NLP trainer in New Zealand, presents a more detailed overview of NLP and many of the useful concepts that teachers can use in the classroom. Much of the rest of this edition assumes knowledge of these first two pieces. Charles Adamson (the person who has probably worked the longest with Suggestopedia in Japan) draws the parallels between suggestopedia and NLP/Educational Hypnosis. Then Acton, who published one of the first hypnosis/NLP related articles in the TESOL Quarterly back in l984 (although neither field was directly mentioned), looks at pronunciation teaching in the light of educational hypnosis and NLP and provides a set of seven suggestions to help teachers. In the My Share section there are accounts by five Japanese teachers of English (Goto, Hayashi, Mitsuda, Saeki, and Ochi) of how they have used NLP in the classroom and an account by Deacon of teacher learning through modeling and observing another teacher. Kyoko Adamson presents the concept of anchoring, also in Japanese. Finally Allaway compares Buddhism and NLP in the Opinion column, and an Annotated Bibliography for interested readers points you in further directions when you want to know even more. We have included a few relevant reviews of books, videos, and trainings. So there Murphey was listening intently in Finland wanting to understand NLP as a 10 year old. And Joseph said (and readers, you can do this now; and we will, too, 'cause it can be fun and healthy), "Think of one of the best moments that happened today. Make a picture of it in your mind, now. [Pause for search.] Got it? Great! Now think of one of the best things that has ever happened to you. Make a picture of it in your mind, now. [Pause for search.] Got it? Great! Now let those two pictures float together and just notice your feelings and reactions." As the person was doing this, his head rose and moved back, his eyes looked to the left and right and his face expressed confusion followed by a smile as he accessed his two delicious moments coming into one. He then took a deep breath, and Joseph said, "That's NLP."
Tim Murphey & Charles Adamson
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