13. An Accelerated Learning Course
The following is an exact description of how we have created an Accelerated Learning Language Course. If you follow the technique you can create your own course for your own learning needs.
The pre-recorded Accelerated Language Courses (they are in French, Spanish, Italian, German and English as a Foreign Language) incorporate all the principles we have learnt from our study. They build on the Lozanov techniques by incorporating powerful visualisation aids and by including activities that reflect the three main learning styles. Each is written by a leading language course designer.
An Accelerated Learning Course is designed to transform your ability to learn. You will learn faster, you will learn more easily and you will learn better.
This is clearly a very bold statement to make. However the claim does not have to be taken on trust. We have prepared a Learn-to Learn double cassette tape and booklet that teaches you how to apply Accelerated Learning to subjects of your own choice.
The double tape has four sides:
In conjunction with the lesson text, in the accompanying booklet, these tapes allow you to prove to yourself that you really can learn to recognise the meaning of 300-400 words of a new foreign language in a day! (That's about 15%-20% of a working vocabulary.) You can personally experience the Active and Receptive Baroque music concerts, the power of the memory maps and the effectiveness of the peripheral learning techniques. They also give you a practical example of how to create your own Accelerated Learning Course.
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Note:
'Excerpts include: Handel Concerto Op. 4 No 5 and 6. Op. 3 No 2 and 5: VIVALSI 'Four Seasons': Albinoni D Minor Op 9; Pachelbel Kanon L D; Bach Suite 3.
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So with the proviso that you can prove, it all for yourself by using the Learn-to-Learn Cassette tapes - here is the full Accelerated Learning technique.
To maximise memory - maximise associations
Accelerated Learning uses a whole range of psychological techniques, to present new material in such a way as to create a number of powerful associations.
Put simply the more associations and the stronger they are, the easier it is to remember and learn.
Our initial courses are for language learning because it is clear that, if Accelerated Learning works well in teaching a foreign language, it will work even faster when you come to learn anything in your native language. For two obvious reasons.
Firstly, when you are learning new material in your own language, it is much easier to form ready associations.
Secondly, it is normally enough to learn the sense of new material. You don't for example have to remember the exact form of words printed in your history book, but you do have to remember the exact words of a foreign language. Close approximations will not do. (The main exception is learning a play part, which is why the techniques in Accelerated Learning are of especial interest to actors.)
An Accelerated Learning Course is in two parts. Part One is designed to create the basic memory. To get all the vocabulary into your head in a relaxed and easy manner. Part Two is designed to let you recall that vocabulary from your memory whenever you need it. We have seen that the two tasks are not the same.
In the full description that follows, some of the reasons for each step are repeated, since many readers will use this section as an aide memoire in creating their own courses. You will find that Chapter 14, Accelerated Learning for children, also has important practical hints on developing your own course.
An Accelerated Learning Lesson - Part One
Step one - Relax
At the beginning of each lesson you carry out a short (2 mins) relaxation and breathing exercise. This calms your mind and
Creates a relaxed body but receptive mind. It also increases the oxygen supply to the brain which improves brain function. Tension inhibits memory and learning, so you need to get rid of it. The very beginning of each tape has, a very short Baroque music introduction - acting like a 'theme tune' to trigger a mood relaxed receptivity.
Step Two - Context
Each lesson is in the form of a story that takes place in real life and believable, practical situations. You first read through that story in English and the cassette tape tells you the most important new points to notice in your new language. This creates a pleasant sense of security because you know what to expect, and you will fully understand the context of the story. You can see that your knowledge of the new language will progress on a well planned smooth route and you know what to look for.
When you prepare an Accelerated Learning Course on the subject in your own language, you should review all the material you want to learn, and then make a note of the central or core ideas. The detail will then become easily associated with those core ideas. When you recall the core ideas, your memory for the subsidiary points is triggered. This economises the number of initial points you have to commit to memory.
This natural mapping principle is instinctive. When you visit a new country or city you look for the landmarks - and then relate other places to them. It is also how we do jigsaws. Doing a jigsaw without the overall picture to guide you is much more difficult.
Step Three - Peripheral Text
The text of the foreign language and the English translation are printed in two columns side by side on the page thus -
Philip looks at the house. - Philip regarde la maison.
It is big and beautiful.- Elle est grande et belle.
Philip goes up to the front door - Philip s'approche de la porte d'entrée.
He rings the bell and waits. - Il sonne et attend.
An old lady opens the door. - Une dame âgée ouvre la porte.
What do you want young man?" she says. - "Qu'est-ce que vous voulez jeune homme?" dit-elle.
The length of the sentences / lines is rarely longer than 7 words. This layout and "chunking" achieves three objectives.
Although your eye may be focussed on the English text, your peripheral vision is taking in the foreign translation and vice versa. So you are already involving your subconscious and are beginning to create some memory - with no conscious effort at all.
Secondly, as we have discovered, the optimum number of bits or "chunks" of new information is about 7.
Thirdly, the fact that the translation is always instantly available means you never have to worry about it. A central principle of Accelerated Learning is that you always feel secure.
Step Four- Make a "mental movie" of the text
You listen to the text of your course for the first time. It is recorded like an Act from a Radio play.
The voices and sound effects create a memorable, dramatic, impression and enable you to visualise in your mind's eye what is happening. Later on you will be able to recall the language by rerunning what amounts to a "mental movie" of the language in association with the scenes of the story.
Step Five - More Security
The second reading involves a whispered English translation first, followed by the translation text in your new foreign language.
This unusual sequence gives you the maximum confidence and security because you already know the meaning of the new words before you hear them. So you are not tense and consequently you learn quicker. Moreover, the whispered translation subconsciously suggests the text is important and encourages you to use your ear as well as your eye. We have already managed to involve two senses.
Television advertising experts have long known that synchronising the visual picture on the screen, plus the voice over, (plus ideally a super title to "drive the point home") is the best way to create memory. The advertiser has only a few seconds in which to make you remember; we use the same technique but you can replay the tape as often as you want.
Step Six - Visual Associations to Add Right Brain Power
After two readings on the cassette tape you will now be ready to our powerful and unique language memory maps. Remember, how we emphasised that when you find your way around a new town you look for the landmarks? Well, a memory map takes the main words and concepts you want to remember and links them, together with lines and pictures.
A memory map is a good representation of how the brain actually works. The brain does not work in neat linear logic going steadily from A to B, B to C, and so on. Left to right conventional printing on a page is, therefore, not necessarily "natural". It is merely a useful but contrived way of organising information. Teachers of young children will confirm that when they begin to learn to read they will often read left to right and then want to drop a line and read the next line from right to left - thus:
Moreover, a large body of Middle Eastern and Far Eastern languages are read from right to left.
The Language Memory Map is a unique way of pictorialising the lesson, putting text into a visual form. Since pictures are remembered far better than spoken words, and since the right brain is now brought into action, memory maps have a double benefit. They produce powerful visual images and they stimulate right brain activity.
The whole brain, left and right working in harmony, will be constantly creating and recalling associations and making connections. Moreover, the whole brain can take in information from many different sources simultaneously. Look at the memory map below. See how the chunked text on the page above has been transferred to a memory map. See how the words are written on connecting lines or are lettered over, or associated with, pictures.
The memory map is a very, very powerful teaching aid in Accelerated Learning. Partly because it presents the material in a way that is natural to the brain and partly because it creates a very strong visual image. So now you are creating a series of easily remembered visual associations for your new vocabulary.
In Step Six you turn on your tape recorder and listen to the text spoken in a soft, confidential tone, while you follow the text on your Memory Map. Not all the simpler words are included but the ideas are linked together in groups. The idea is to enable you to fix the language in your mind's eye. To associate words with pictures.
On Side 2 of the Introductory tape we include training in visualisation. If you can get the language lesson successfully visualised "in your mind's eye", you will create a semiphotographic memory for it, and your learning will become astonishingly easy.
By the end of Step Six you will have made significant progress in the process of creating strong associations for your new vocabulary.
Step Seven - Sound Associations to Add Right Brain Power
Next comes the "Active Concert". In this step you will again be listening to the text. Now, however, it is spoken over a background of Baroque music. Baroque music, which is at 60 beats to the minute, is very relaxing, calms the mind, increases the proportion of Alpha brain waves and stimulates right brain activity.
Because the voice is used, almost like an instrument in the orchestra, "sound surfing" over the music, we are creating a strong sound association with the new vocabulary that you're learning.
The text becomes better fixed in your memory, and we have now introduced yet another memory aid - rhythm. The lesson can become as easy as learning a song.
Because the music is mainly processed by the right brain, whereas speech is a left brain activity, you are helping to synchronise left and right brain activity. Two brains are not only better than one, they promote faster learning!
Step Eight - Relax Again
Take a two minute break to repeat the simple breathing and relaxing exercises. You are now prepared for even deeper relaxation.
Step Nine - Let Your Subconscious do the Work
Now you will be coming to the end of Part One of your first lesson.
Close your book and turn on the tape recorder. Relax and shut your eyes. You will now listen to a second Baroque music concert. This time the music is the dominant sound - and the text of your lesson is being spoken at a low (but audible) level. The music again appeals to your right brain and creates a receptive, relaxed mood. Now, however, the words are intended to be directly addressed to your subconscious. The new language in a real sense is being "floated" quietly and gently into your mind.
The end of the second, or passive, Baroque concert concludes Part One, of each lesson. The whole sequence takes about 45 minutes. In that short time:
In other words you will have succeeded in co-ordinating all the elements that go to achieve successful (Accelerated) Learning.
But there's still more!
Part One of the lesson is designed to create a deep and accurate memory of your new language. It has been largely passive learning however.
Ideally you will now stop and not start Part Two until the following day. This is to let the new information "sink in", since we believe that your brain uses part of sleep as a way to rehearse and store new information.
An Accelerated Learning Lesson - Part Two
Active Recall on Demand
Next day you start Part Two of your lesson. This involves a whole series of interesting and enjoyable activities that involve you directly with the new vocabulary you have learnt.
We learn best when we are personally involved, so this part is alI active participation, games, etc. It looks like fun, but again we use simple techniques that have been found to be highly effective in transforming the recognition you have undoubtedly achieved for your new language, into the ability to recall that vocabulary on demand and use it fluently in practical and different situations.
The "Activation" exercises you follow in Part Two of each language lesson, has scope for all three styles or "modes" of learning - Auditory, Visual and Kinaesthetic. Again the techniques are described in relation to our pre-recorded Accelerated Learning Courses, but the principles can be used and adapted if you are preparing your own Accelerated Learning course, whatever the subject.
Step One - Relax
Follow through the simple 2 minute breathing and relaxation exercises. This is calming and also provides you with an ideal mental "set" or attitude for learning.
Step Two - Warm Up
The soft confidential reading is repeated again (Step Six of Part One). Follow the Memory Map.
This provides a review and a warm-up for learning. No athlete would dream of simply going out onto the track and trying to perform at peak efficiency. They always "warm-up". So should a peak performance learner.
Step Three - Involve Yourself
Use a series of coloured pencils to highlight, underline, or mark up any words in the Memory Map that are important to you. It actively involves you and your personal contribution helps fix the material in your mind's eye. (This is a visual and kinaesthetic exercise.)
Step Four - Train your Ear
We next provide a "pronunciation period". It lets you listen to how sounds are pronounced in the foreign language. It's vital to get the pronunciation right early on, because researchers have found that we tend to repeat our earliest attempts at foreign language pronunciation - so if its right at the beginning it will always be right. If its wrong you have to unlearn it later.
Every language has its own "music", rhythm and intonation. Indeed every language has a characteristic frequency. Babies learn to react to this frequency in the womb. So your own language is literally inborn in you. We have developed exercises in the cassette, and visuals in the book, to help you develop an "ear" for the cadences of the language straight away.
You'll listen to the cassette and repeat some key phrases. You are also now starting to treat your tape recorder as your partner. This is important, because you need to bring your new language actively alive. Since most pre-recorded courses are used by yourself, the more interaction we can achieve with this tape the better.
Step Five - Involve yourself in Realistic Dialogue
Next you will find the vocabulary you've already learned put into dialogue form. Often in the form of questions and answers between two characters. You thus become used to normal conversations. You can become actively involved in these dialogues by repeating the words and by playing the part of one of the characters. You can, for example, answer before your character does, by pressing the pause button on your cassette player.
Step Six - Involve yourself in personalised dialogue
Now follows what we call personalised dialogues. In this step you are asked questions directly and you must answer for your own personal circumstances - name, nationality etc. Again you are treating your tape recorder as a partner and the language comes alive and relevant to you personally. We encourage you to walk around, gesticulate and act out the answers. It is a dress rehearsal for real life situations and is again active involvement in which you use as many of the senses as possible.
Step Seven - Take a Break
Take a short break. In a learning situation we remember best what was at the beginning and the end of the session. Concentration (and memory) wanes in the middle so the shorter the middle, the better the learning.
Step Eight - Maximum Communication with Minimum Effort
Next step involves another unique idea built into Accelerated Learning Language courses. We call it "learning the Multiplier Words and Phrases".
A multiplier phrase, (or word) is one that doesn't take much effort to learn, but once learnt, generates a huge amount of practical language use. Thus, if you simply learn the French for "What is that called - give me one please." you would be able to go shopping in France for almost anything.
There are "multiplier" words and phrases in every lesson. They also illustrate a simple, but important, principle. The principle of the most communication for least memory.
Moreover, if you learn a lot of usable vocabulary quickly, you rapidly gain confidence and enjoyment in your new ability. It's the joy of learning in a practical form.
Step Nine - Rhyme and Reason
In each language lesson we provide "grammar jingles". Whilst a lot of grammar is unconsciously absorbed from the lesson itself, there are obviously rules you simply must know to speed up your learning. So we have put the grammar rules in rhyme form, or sometimes even in a chant or song form.
Learning the number of days in the month is easy to remember because of the rhyme:
The information has been "chunked" into short sentences and secondly, it has rhythm and rhyme. In the same way grammar points are easy and pleasant to learn if they are expressed in rhythm and rhyme. So we do.
Step Ten - Visualise the Language
This step is of great importance. It will appear simple but its effect is powerful. You sit quietly and close your eyes. Then, with a blank tape in your tape recorder, you visualise the entire scene you have been learning in Part One and describe it out loud in your new language. You can either use the verbatim words, if you remember them so perfectly, or just use what words you can remember. Don't necessarily try to make proper sentences, it is too early. Just use the nouns, adjectives or verbs that come into your mind as you visualise the scenes.
Step Eleven - Become as a Child
The lesson ends with some fun games
* There's a word square game to complete in your text book. * There's some true or false questions.
* In each lesson there's a different game to play that indirectly teaches you something (e.g. numbers or colours) without you even realising it).
In the Language text book we provide another, simple idea, which is a fun way to boost your learning effortlessly.
Each Course contains a set of word cards. These cards contain most of the verbs, nouns and adjectives that have already been learnt.
In French, for example, masculine nouns are printed blue, feminine nouns are printed pink. The adjectives are printed in both the feminine and masculine versions. The top half of an adjective card is masculine and printed blue, the bottom half is feminine and printed pink. This automatically teaches the learner to match up
the correct masculine or feminine ending as appropriate to the noun.
Example -
The word cards enable a great deal of interesting, involved and peripheral learning to take place.
Firstly they can be used to build up sentences from words you have already learnt, but in quite new ways. Or the learner can sort the cards out into nouns, verbs, adjectives and prepositions (remember Tulving's success?). Then take three cards from each pile and try to make up a sentence using as many of the cards as possible.
Or use the cards as "flash cards" to rehearse the meanings in a moment of spare time, e.g. on a train journey.
Or take the word cards for objects commonly found around the house. By fixing the word in your new language for "door" actually on the door, or "lamp" on the lamp, you have an automatic and largely subconscious prompt every time you pass by. It's an effortless way to absorb vocabulary.
There's an important point of principle throughout Step Two. Almost all the learning is in the form of games, in which you are actively involved. The nearer you can get to the open receptivity of a child, the faster you will learn.
"Become as a child" and you really will become a highly successful Accelerated Learner.
The Name Game
A unique feature of the Accelerated Learning Language Courses is a section called The Name Game. This is based on the fact that English and other European foreign languages have a common origin. Over hundreds of years they have evolved to look and sound different- but the difference can be likened to extreme dialects of the same languages. Once you see how this evolution has taken place, it is easy and fun to appreciate, at a glance, the meanings of thousands of Spanish, French or German words.
A simple illustration proves the point. Over the years z in German has often evolved into a `t' sound in English, thus zoll = 'toll' or duty, zinn = `tin' and zu = 'to'.
Similarly, the vowel sound ei in German is now often represented by 'o' in English, so stein = 'stone' and allein = `alone'. Knowing the above it is easy to work out why zwei = 'two' in English, why malz is 'malt' and bein is'bone'.
The Name Game is a good example of how involvement and the creation of associations make learning faster and more enjoyable.
Learning Versus Acquisition
Our Accelerated Learning Method as applied to languages has much in common with the principles expounded by Stephen Krashen and Tracy Terrell in their recent and influential book "The Natural Approach".
They point out the total failure for most people of the grammar based methods of language teaching. This approach, is still unfortunately the "norm" in schools, even though almost everyone finds it boring and the poor results are all too evident.
The simple truth is that the goal of the grammar and drill based lessons is different from what people in the real world want. Most people learn a language in order to communicate.
To communicate you need to know enough vocabulary in order to express ideas, wants and opinions and describe the world about you. Grammar is only the framework for that expression and by definition is secondary to vocabulary.
As anyone knows, who has learned a foreign language by "picking it up" in the country itself, communicative ability is acquired really quite rapidly, easily and enjoyably - grammatical accuracy on the other hand increases much more slowly - after experience of actually using the language.
As Krashen puts it so well, grammar is a model, a "monitor" you eventually come to have in your head, which tells you instinctively whether, what you have just said "sounds" or "feels" right. But that, by definition, pre-supposes that the production of words to communicate comes first, and the use of grammar as a monitor, comes second.
States Krashen `The mistake is to assume that a conscious understanding of grammar is a pre-requisite to acquiring communicative competence.
`Early exposure of the systematic organization of the grammatical form of the language is neither necessary nor sufficient for the learners mastery of the language. Presentation of particular instances of language in contexts which exemplify their meaning and use is both sufficient and necessary.'
In other words, understanding the meaning of what is said to you in a natural context is the first priority. In this way you acquire language. Afterwards comes learning the rules or grammar.
This distinction between acquisition and learning may sound slight but in fact it is highly significant. Every one of us acquires our own native language, and we do it easily and effortlessly. Only later do we learn the formal rules of grammar.
The emphasis of our Accelerated Learning Language Courses is on acquiring language for practical communication.
Only when the use of language becomes an unconscious skill do we become fluent. Clearly if, before we said something, we had to:
* Rehearse the sentence in our mind, * "Monitor" whether the structure was correct,
* Know the "rules" involved in that structure,
-then we would talk falteringly, if at all! In natural speech we concentrate on what is being said, not how it is being said.
Yet conventional foreign language teaching is concerned far too much with how things are said. It is concerned with learning rather than acquisition. Concentration on language learning and making continuous corrections, leads to hesitancy, lack of confidence, a diminishing of your natural fluency. Learning is a conscious process, whereas acquisition is a sub-conscious process and, therefore, much easier.
We are not saying that you do not need grammar - clearly you do. But learning grammar comes naturally and easily after you have acquired a reasonable vocabulary and communicative ability.
If this natural sequence is followed then grammar no longer becomes a tedious and off-putting chore. It becomes a source of pleasure and pride, because you have the feeling of putting some elegance and sophistication to your new language.
How Best to Acquire a Language
Acquisition of language takes place quite simply and automatically when you understand what you are reading or listening to.
This is why we stress the use of "peripheral prompt" translations in Accelerated Learning, and the Memory Maps that tie together words and pictures. We acquire when we focus our attention on what is being said, and we acquire when we are confident.
One source of that confidence, is the knowledge that it takes time to be able to speak in your new target language. An infant understands far more than she can initially say, and speaks when she is ready.
So you must expect the initial spoken words in your new language to be flawed and inaccurate - just as the infants is. This, however, is just a natural phase and will automatically be superceded by increased fluency.
Since your ability to understand will initially outstrip your ability to speak, there is simply no need to speak much before you are ready. Expect too that your early steps in speaking will be to answer with one or two word answers, then simple phrases, and only later with sentences.
If you approach the learning of a language with a relaxed attitude, you'll succeed just as well as you did when you learned your own language.
It is the way that the Accelerated Learning Language Courses have been prepared. The grammar has been embedded in the course and you'll acquire the rules implicitly, just as you learned your own language. Naturally there are also explicit grammar explanations, because as an adult you can accept and understand rules much faster than an infant. Moreover since the Accelerated Learning Course teaches you a large proportion of the basic language in such a short time, the "naturally good learner" will instinctively want the grammar rules to provide a structure. But the grammar explanation never gets in the way of meaning and communication.
If we envisage grammar based / left brain emphasis learning to be at one end of the spectrum and meaningful input / right brain emphasis acquisition to be at the other end, then an Accelerated Learning Course lies towards the "right" (see figure) However, because the grammar rules are clearly provided, everyone whether "acquirer" or "learner", can progress in whichever way they feel most comfortable.
Creating your own Course
Let us now consider how you might create an Accelerated Learning Courses of your own for two different subjects.
1) French homework for a lesson from a conventional school course
or
2) Learning a new scientific technique. For example memorising the elements in Accelerated Learning itself!
Example One - The French Homework
Here is a quick check list of what you might do.
1) You would certainly do 2 minutes breathing and relaxing.
2) You would write the vocabulary out in side by side columns and/or you'd "chunk" the text if that was appropriate.
3) You'd record the material to learn on your tape recorder with appropriate baroque music playing in the background on a second tape recorder or music centre.
4) You would sketch out a quick memory map - it only takes a few minutes. You'd connect the words and phrases that had associations.
5) You would play back your own recording (with the Baroque music now automatically in the background). And you would follow it on your side by side text.
This does pre-suppose you have access to two tape recorders (or a tape recorder & music centre). However, we find most people do, or can borrow an extra tape recorder.
6) You would underline the important words in a coloured pen or highlighter pen (visual involvement).
7) You would walk around and act out the words (active or kinaesthetic involvement).
8) You would close your eyes and try to make up a story, however simple, using the words you have learnt and visualising the scenes in your minds' eye.
9) You would perhaps make up some "flash" cards and play some of the word games.
What we promise you, is that the little extra work and time you put in at this stage, will be repaid manifold by the fact that your learning will be much faster and more thorough than using conventional methods. Do a little more work now, and save a lot of work later.
A short anecdote would be appropriate here. As the techniques of Accelerated Learning were being discussed in our office one of our colleagues rather hesitantly asked whether it would work for her 9 year old daughter, Rachel? `Absolutely, it would'we said. We made a visit and taught her just two elements. How to record her homework over the Baroque music and how to write down the words on a side by side list. Then we told her to play your tape half an hour before going to bed and again in the morning, (she has a Walkman type machine).
Coincidently there was a parents evening two weeks later. The French teacher button-holed our colleague and asked, `What on earth have you done with Rachel? She's been transformed. Her marks are near perfect, and she's gone from 22nd in class to 3rd in class in two weeks!' We believe strongly that just as a vicious circle is all too easily created, where a few poor results create a long term negative attitude and expectations of failure - so Accelerated Learning has proved over and over again that you can create a "virtuous circle" where success breeds success. You break out of the vicious circle and create instead a positive expectation of accomplishment.
The virtuous circle is a major benefit of the Accelerated Learning technique.
Example Two - Remembering the elements in a pre-recorded Accelerated Learning French Course.
Let's suppose the concept of Accelerated Learning was completely new to you. You would:
a) Do 2 minutes breathing and relaxing exercises.
b) Read through the description. You have already done that in Chapter 13.
c) You would pull out the core ideas and maybe highlight them. The list on the opposite page is a fair summary.
d) You would create a memory map. Make sure the key words on the memory map trigger a lot of associations (usually you use concrete nouns and verbs). You would draw some simple
pictures as that helps.
Try to use words or connections that produce strong images. Use connecting lines so the ideas would branch out, in the way that the brain makes connections. Print so the visual image is strong.
Maybe the memory maps would look like those on the following page.
e) Record the words on the memory map on one tape recorder with the Baroque music playing in the background (using a 2nd) tape recorder).
f) Play it back and follow your memory map, thereby fixing it in both your auditory and visual memory.
g) Close your eyes and follow the memory map in your mind's eye, describing the sequence of events out loud. Thereby synchronising left and right brains.
An Accelerated Learning Language Course A Summary of the core ideas and sequence of steps
Part I - Creating the Memory
a) 300-400 words per 45 minute lesson.
b) Powerful association is key to memory.
c) The strongest associations involve right brain and link it to left brain (i.e. pictures & words or music & words or pictures & words & music).
Steps are:
1) Relax, deep breath.
2) Establish the context of lesson in English. P, jigsaw picture gives security.
3) Review side by side text in "chunked" sentences.
4) Play 1 st lesson. Female voice is reassuring.
5) Play 2nd version. Whispered English translation comes first. Since you already know meaning, you can concentrate on the new language without tension. More security.
6) Review memory map. Reproduces way brain works. Turns lesson into a pictorial form. Visual memory is strongest type of memory. Also visualisation is a mainly right brain activity. So a memory map creates strong visual association to speed the
creation of memory and provokes right brain activity in synchronised support of left brain learning.
7) Listen to Active Concert. Text is spoken over a background of Baroque music. Now it is the music that provokes right brain activity. The music is relaxing and also creates an emotive and sound association for the new vocabulary. Rhythm helps too. Pop song example.
8) Relax - deep breath.
9) Allow passive concert to float vocabulary directly into subconsciousness.
The above sequence creates a unique presentation which achieves peripheral learning, left/right brain involvement and conscious/subconscious learning.
10) Overnight break to let material "sink in".
Part II - Turning recognition into recall through activation
a) We remember best what we're actively involved in.
b) All three learning modes need expression - visual, auditory and kinaesthetic (Modes V, A and K).
c) Indirect learning is often best - through games. Become as a child is the key.
Steps are:
1) Relax, deep breath.
2) Highlight, colour, underline memory map. Involves. (Mode V and K)
3) Listen to lesson and review Memory Map - Provides Warm Up.
4) Practice Pronunciation Period - creates an `ear' for the language (Mode A)
5) Act out dialogues on tape. Active involvement (Mode A and K)
6) Personalise the dialogues. Provide relevant and active involvement (Mode A and K)
7) Take a Break. Improves memory.
8) Learn multiplier phrases. Maximum communication/minimum effort.
9) Learn grammar jingles. Chants and rhymes are easily recalled.
10) Visualise scene of lesson. Speak it out loud, synchronise Right and Left brain.
11) Play the games - puzzles, word cards, flash cards. Indirect stress free learning through active pleasurable involvement (Modes V and K).
Summary
90 minutes of tape time - 300/400 words in two days - finish relaxed and refreshed.
