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Re: [xmca] Georgi Lozanov
Em:
Lozanov is the author of a particular language learning method variously called "suggestopaedia" or "super-learning" which regularly appears in language teachiing programmes but which very few people have actually used. (Language teaching programmes tend to try to be "survey courses" and pay little or no attention to issues like relative importance or even issues generally).
Suggestopaedia is a kind of subliminal learning theory; it involves the use of, for example, Baroque music and carefully sequenced language learning material and the ever-popular (esp. in America) idea that "real" learning should be unconscious and painless, rather like major surgery.
For reasons that have NEVER been made clear to me, A.A. Leontiev had very flattering things to say about Lozanov in his book "Psychology and the Language Learning Process" (Pergamon, 1981 pp. 110-130). He assimilates it, quite wrongly, to the much more consciousness oriented experiments of Uznadze, Leontiev, Makarenko, and even Vygotsky, and he refers to "suggestopaedia" as "truly scientific" and the basis for the "intensive learning" language practices of the USSR. Perhaps what attracted Leontiev was the emphasis on visual imaging and lowering the "affective filter" through the use of invented second language egos (Leontiev was very interested in the use of cinema in language teaching).
Attitudes outside Bulgaria and Russia are much more ambivalent. A number of prominent researchers in mainstream applied linguistics were very skeptical, and some even denounced him as a charlatan. Steven Krashen, who considers that the real obstacle to processing "input" is something called the "affective filter", was predictably enthusiastic. The method is included in survey courses alongside things like Neuro-linguistic Programming, the "Silent Approach" and therapy-based approaches like Community Language Learning. He has become VERY commercial as of late; you occasionally see ads for "super learning" on the internet, alongside offers for foreign brides.
David Kellogg
Seoul National University of Education
--- On Tue, 12/21/10, Duvall, Emily <emily@uidaho.edu> wrote:
From: Duvall, Emily <emily@uidaho.edu>
Subject: [xmca] Georgi Lozanov
To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
Date: Tuesday, December 21, 2010, 10:55 PM
A student of mine who lives in Bulgaria mentioned a Dr. Georgi Lozanov.
Is anyone familiar with his work?
~em
Emily Duvall, PhD
Assistant Professor of Curriculum & Instruction
Assistant Professor of Neuroscience
Director, Northwest Inland Writing Project
Program Coordinator, Elementary Education
University of Idaho, Coeur d'Alene
1031 North Academic Way, Suite 242 | Coeur d'Alene, ID 83814
T 208 292 2512 | F 208 667 5275 emily@uidaho.edu
<mailto:barbm@uidaho.edu> | www.cda.uidaho.edu
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