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16. Notes For Teachers
Accelerated Learning is easy and effective for the student, precisely because it is more demanding on the teacher. The teacher must learn to present material in ways that are very easily absorbed into the students long term memory.
Leading expert on Accelerated Learning is Charles Schmid of the L I N D Institute, San Francisco. He holds 5 day teacher training programmes all over the world. We asked him to contribute some suggestions as to how a teacher, new to the principles of Accelerated Learning, might start implementing them in a classroom situation.
Accepting that the basic structure of the course would follow the lines already detached for home study, he made the following suggestions that are specific to group teaching.
The Classroom
Students should feel welcomed. If possible have a horseshoe shape arrangement for the chairs. There is then no barrier between teacher and students and the teacher can use his body kinaesthetically. A rug on the floor, and ideally some flowers, is pleasant and music playing as students enter, immediately creates a positive and happy atmosphere. Fade the music down gradually when you are ready - do not cut it off abruptly. A flipchart is preferable to a black board, because you can use colour and you can refer back, whereas once something is erased from a blackboard it is gone forever. A few pictures on the wall, changed regularly, implies that you are creating a fresh environment, something new to look forward to, and that the teacher cares about the students learning.
Tuning Up
Students arrive in class with varying degrees of interest and at varying levels of energy. If you equate these levels, they should be able to absorb the information about equally. Even for adults, throwing a ball around the class works. The 2 minutes breathing exercises are very important. The students need to understand the paradox that relaxation is the ideal state in which to learn. Many initially misunderstand the word relaxation in this context. It is a state of relaxed awareness, rather than relaxation on the way to sleep. If you relax, you liberate energy, and you therefore have more energy with which to learn.
Verbal Suggestion
Choice of words can be important. Words are so easily construed positively or negatively.
For example "DIFFICULT". Something difficult is really only something that requires more practice. It was originally difficult to ride a bike or to swim - but now it is easy.
For example "DON'T". "Don't forget to bring your books tomorrow", has in it a hidden command which is "forget to bring your books". Prefer instead "Bring your books tomorrow" - it is a positive command.
Non-Verbal Suggestion
Voice tone, eye contact, facial expression, all communicate more about your feelings for the subjects than the words. They should communicate enthusiasm. Students should feel free to make mistakes without being put down - because then they will try out new things.
Role Playing
In language classes, it is very useful to have the student take on the identity of someone in his new language. It brings him closer to the culture of specific occupation. Jobs such as wine grower, or baker work well. In non-language areas it can be hugely productive to have students take on the personna of a real person in that field. One physics teacher in a junior High School gave out names of famous scientists - Galileo, Copernicus, Einstein, Oppenheimer. The students chose one and became that scientist for the term. They researched their life and history and not only reported back to other students in the first person - but had round table discussions. The students' imagination was excited, and they became involved - so they learnt.
In history, it would be good to have some music of the period, and to have the students visualise the action of the period. Queen Elizabeth debating with her ministers as to what action to take about the Spanish Navy. The debate gets the students emotionally involved, they play roles, and it comes alive. You should emphasise the importance of not just picturing the scenes, but envisaging the sounds and feelings as well.
It is possible to visualise in a similar way for maths. The students can visualise the volume of a sphere as the formula is given. Maths formula are, after all, only abstractions from reality.
Games
It is important to defocus the learning process and focus instead on the game to be played. Distract the conscious and you produce stress free learning.
Chorus Reading
A chorus reading - all together - is good in a language class during the initial stages. It is a safer environment than a sole reading and does not make for tension.
Charts
If there is visual material, grammar charts or maths formulae to remember, they can be put up to the students left - because we store visual images in the upper left quadrant of our minds' eye.
Figuring It Out
In a language class it is better to give some examples of sentences and then challenge the students, to figure out the implicit grammar rules for themselves.
Sketches
Acting out even a simple phrase is a big memory aid.
Activation
After you have created the primary memory for new information, via the concerts and memory maps, it is a good idea to activate that material within 36 hours at the latest. Activations probably should take up about 75% of the total teaching time with the actual concert sessions about 15% and the remaining 10% devoted to the teacher acting out the information.
Visualising Success
Every third or fourth day it helps to have the students visualising themselves using the new information successfully. In a language class, they can imagine themselves in that country, using the language fluently and hearing phrases they already know. In a mathematics class they can picture themselves solving problems easily. It works.
Internal v External Motivation
Charles Schmid emphasises the importance of students having an internal motivation - "I want to learn this" rather than an external motivation - "Someone has told me to learn this".
Internal motivation comes when the subject becomes exciting, when they can see the real advantage of knowing the new information, when they feel sympathetic towards the subject.
Big Picture Analysis
It is always easier to learn the relevance of details when you have seen the big picture. So it is a good idea to sketch out the entire course at the very beginning. The students will know where they are going. This is important for science subjects, as well as history, maths or literature.
In languages, it can be very productive to include some grammar points that you may only activate in later lessons. So the students for example, actually see the past tense used for two lessons, before they are told the specific way it is constructed. But then it will no longer be a new piece of information. It will already be familiar and it should be possible to get the students to workout the rules for constructing the tense for themselves.
This is a good way of feeding in information at the semiconscious level, as well as the fully conscious level. It is why there seems to be a "snowball" effect towards the end of an Accelerated Learning Course. The students find everything falls into place, because they have been exposed to most of the material for some time. The material was registering, but because it had not been activated and specifically highlighted, it had not been fully learnt at the conscious level.
This is what is known as global learning. Being exposed to a lot of material, but picking out parts in a planned sequence and seeing how those parts fit into the whole. It is the way children learn between 3 and 6 years old, when the pleasure and excitement of learning is most intense.
Text
It is important, in language teaching, to have adult themes. Use a story with some suspense in it. Use scenes with plenty of possibility for sensory impressions - sounds, sights, feelings, colours.
The plot should be positive and the characters sympathetic.
Flexibility
One of the principles of the new wave of pragmatic psychotherapists can be best summarised "if you are trying something and it doesn't work - stop and try something new." The same thing applies to teaching. Watch for the feedback, the response, from your students and adapt.
Conclusion
Accelerated Learning works because it adapts the presentation of knowledge to the way people's minds really work. It does not try to adapt people to the material.
Note
1) Charles Schmid can be contacted at the LIND Institute, P.O. Box 14487 San Francisco C.A.
2) Further books that teachers might be interested to read can be found in the Bibliography. In addition, there are a number of books that specifically contain instructions, games and exercises to promote better utilisation of global, intuitive thinking and more ready use of imagery in creative thinking.
They include "Put your Mother on the Ceiling" (de Mille 1981), "Experiences in Visual Thinking" (McKim 1972) "Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain" (Edwards 1979) and "The Metamorphic Mind" (Samples 1976).
APPENDIX A
The Paradise Unified School Project
The following is a reprint of the official report commissioned by California State Educational Authority.
1. Summary
Accelerated Learning potential is a ESEA Title IV-C Project in its second year of state administered funding. Accelerated Learning techniques have been shown in this project to dramatically increase student learning rates in reading, maths, spelling and writing. These same strategies have improved student behaviour and time on task, while they increased teacher confidence and stress regulation in the classroom.
This project has synthesised recent research discoveries about the human mind in order to develop an instructional methodology maximally applicable to the public schools and similar private schools settings. A criterion referenced in-service programme and classroom implementation strategy has evolved from the application of this research.
Methodology
The following strategies are sequenced and systemised for application in the classroom:
1. Arousal Level - creating the optimal physiological arousal level for learning through relaxation, physical exercise, and teacher behaviour.
2. Imagery - utilising mental representatives to insure initial learning, promote retention and increase positive behaviour.
3. Teacher language - conveying high expectations for student achievement through positive suggestions, and both verbal and non verbal teacher language.
4. Music - adjusting classroom atmosphere through the systematic use of varied musical styles.
5. Complete Instructional Format - teaching material to be retained through a modification of the concert instruction originated by Dr. Lozanov.
6. Consolidation Time - guiding the absorption of new concepts and understanding.
V. Project Statistics
1981-82 Grant amount - $64,843.
Students involved: 312 experimental, 156 control Teachers involved: 13 experimental, 6 control 1982-83 Grant amount - $51,874.
Students involved: 538 experimental, 517 control Teachers involved: 20 experimental, 12 control
Total involved in experimental classrooms:
850 students 33 teachers:
2 Resource Specialist classrooms 3 Special Day Classes for Learning Handicapped
1 Speech and Language therapy program.
VI. Project Evaluation - Objective
Summary of First-Year Results:
On standardised teaching with the California Achievement Test, project students averaged a much higher gain (x + 46.88) than did control students (x + 33.42). This is a high significant effect (P <01). Excepting one, project teachers all showed gains exceeding those of the corresponding control group, gaining over 11/2 times as much as control classes.
Behavioural data indicated a significant reduction in behavioural referrals for the project teachers, compared to an increase in behavioural referrals for control teachers. This was coupled with a significantly greater increase in positive ratings of student behaviour by project teachers than control teachers. Further, project teachers increased in their ability to self-regulate their stress and control classroom problems, while control teachers decreased.
Summary of Second-Year Results:
California Achievement Test administered in reading and math demonstrated again significant increases in academic learning for project classrooms (x + 43.23). These gains were idiosyncratic to each teacher, and in some cases, students gained up to nearly twice as much in Accelerated Learning classrooms. In addition, holistically scored composition tests demonstrated significant improvement in writing and composition for students in project classes.
Behavioural data again showed Accelerated Learning methods significantly reduced behavioural problems, decreased the incidence of maladaptive behaviours and effectively improved time on task in the classroom. Finally, project teachers continued to demonstrate high levels of confidence, self regulation and classroom control.
All project data was analysed and interpreted by Grant Evaluation and Research, an independent grant evaluation firm in Chico, California. Their final comment, based on the two-year evaluation, was: "Given the alternative of standard classroom teaching, Accelerated Learning techniques have the potential for dramatically improving the quality of education of regular students in our classroom".
VII Subjective Project Evaluation
Teacher, student and parent response to the implementation of this project has been positive. Among the teacher comments:
1. "This project gives me an opportunity to change and learn new skills so that I may continue longer and more effectively in my teaching profession."
2. "Just like the students, I'm improving myself as a learner and thinker and person. I intend this year to release myself from some of the limitations, I've placed on my own potential."
3. "My students are gaining basic skills more quickly than ever. They're also improving their personally responsible behaviour."
4. "I was ready for a turning point in my teaching career and 1 feel that this has been it."
5. "I have been teaching for over 15 years. I believe that the system brings together that which we know works in a classroom."
Students comments include:
1. "I'm learning how to learn. That's important." (aged 10)
2. "Accelerated Learning helps me control myself, helps me understand things better." (aged 9)
3. "Accelerated Learning Programme helps me to do better in my work, before I begin, I concentrate on what I am going to do." (aged 9)
4. "The Accelerated Learning has given me faith in myself." (aged 9)
5. "I like to do Accelerated Learning because when I feel that I can't do something, I find out I can do it. My brain thinks I can and it relaxes and 1 learn that 1 can learn." (aged 10)
The objective as well as the subjective evaluations of this project clearly indicate the positive impact of this project on teachers and students.
APPENDIX B
The Pre-Recorded Language Courses
Accelerated Learning Courses are available in French, German, Spanish, Italian and English as a Foreign Language. These notes are intended to aid those readers interested in acquiring the complete courses.
The Designers
When we decided to record and print complete language courses in the five main languages we went to the leading linguistic experts in each language. All had produced at least one complete language course and many had prepared courses for the B.B.C. - now one of the leading language publishers in the world.
We approached them with some diffidence. Although we had the evidence that Accelerated Learning works at least three times more effectively than conventional teaching, we were, after all, effectively going to challenge many of their previous assumptions.
It is a tribute to their open-mindedness, and to the persuasive logic behind Accelerated Learning, that they have all embraced the new principles with whole-hearted enthusiasm. Indeed very many of the successful activations are their original creations.
The English as a Foreign Language Course has been designed by Mark Fletcher M.A. and will shortly be available for Native Speakers in German, Spanish, Portuguese, Japanese, French and several Middle to Far East Languages.
Thanks to the E.E.C.!
If we were lucky in finding the leading Course Designers, we were extremely lucky in our timing for the publication of the Accelerated Learning Language Course.
The Council of Europe has devoted many thousands of hours to a very comprehensive study that analyses the foreign language needs of the citizens of the European Economic Community.
In two major publications "The Threshold Level for Modern Language Learning by Adults" and "Waystage", they have been able to define the specific vocabulary that is needed for practical communication. The "Waystage" series, prepared by J.A. Van Ek and his colleagues, identifies all the circumstances in which a traveller, businessman or visitor would expect to find her or himself. It also identifies the most common ways in which people will want to express themselves, their opinions, their attitudes and their needs.
In a literal sense the Waystage series is an inventory of the real life practical language you would need to be able to communicate freely. We have fully incorporated alI their recommendations.
The Waystage series was only published in the late 70's. Because it takes a long time to revise existing conventional language courses, it means that not only is the technique in the Accelerated Learning Language Courses novel, but the content is based on the most up to date and comprehensive research available. The pre-recorded Accelerated Learning Language Courses aim to teach a 2000 words vocabulary. This is good enough to understand 90% of a normal conversation or text.
The Differences
An Accelerated Learning Course and a Conventional Language Course are quite different. You've already seen the format for yourself.
There are some other points of difference that are not quite so obvious, however. In listing them the sublety of the technique will become apparent - and that will aid you in preparing your own course in your own specialist subject or interest.
1) While conventional language courses start out easy and get difficult, the number of words in ourfirst lesson is virtuallythe same as the last lesson. You encounter from the very first scene the normal structure of the language. This is what's called "Global Learning".
The way material is presented is vital. When a small amount of information, fragmented from the whole, is presented slowly, bit by bit, and with a lot of repetition, it suggests that the material is going to be difficult. The same material presented as something one can pick up immediately, in its full complexity, suggests that one can learn it quickly and without struggle.
Yet, because Accelerated Learning presents material in a way that is so easily absorbed, you should be able to learn the text in Lesson One as easily as anything you've ever learned before. Since the first lesson will be as comprehensive as any other lesson, everything that follows it will get progressively easier. Moreover, as you progress you will find that you already know an increasingly large percentage of the material. Your rate of learning speeds up as a consequence, and so does your confidence. You will then acquire the confidence to make mistakes - because "the more mistakes you make the more chances you take". Once you lose your fear of mistakes you will achieve yet another boost in learning speed.
2) The way the course is constructed, you can't "faIl behind because you missed a lesson". The structure of the language is embedded in all the lessons, and because you largely figure it out for yourself, if you haven't worked it out in Chapter 1, you can do so in Chapter 3. It's a global, holographic, not a linear approach. You are introduced to all the important elements straight away.
3) We aim that the Accelerated Learning Course never seems like work, it should seem like fun. It's a joyful experience. This is because the pleasure of making contact with another culture is really quite intense if it proceeds easily and quickly.
We have noticed that once people start learning the language by the Accelerated Learning method, they often have to force themselves to stop - as if they were reading a good book they couldn't put down.
Get past your first brief period of adjustment to this new method and you'll have the time of your life. You will genuinely wantto learn new languages - just for the pleasure of it.
4) Initially some people do get frustrated, because they feel that they cannot be learning. If it is easy, they must be cheating! Yet all our research has shown that they remember what they learn by this method much better than they would if they focussed their attention completely on the learning task and "studied hard". Effort, in the sense of grim determination, doesn't equate with results in learning! But the Calvinist attitude dies hard!
5) We use rounded characters with whom you can become involved. There are plenty of imaginative, colourful scenes which encourage visualisation and take your mind off the act of learning.
Furthermore the conversations are not stilted, but represent real communications between people in situations that are important to them. This way you learn the meaning of words, not from rote drill, but from the context of the story, as you get carried along with the fun of it. It is no accident that lonesco, the playright, developed the "Theatre of the Absurd" after reading the stilted language of an old fashioned language course.
Here's a full list of differences between and Accelerated and a Conventional course. They will suggest to you the principles you need to incorporate when you prepare your own Accelerated course.
A Summary of how a Home Accelerated Learning Course compares with a Conventional Study Course
(Fix Table Page - 228 - 229)
Conventional Learning / Accelerated Learning
1. Fragmented units / Global units, unified text
2. Standard textbook illustrations / Memory Maps to bring the language in a highly visual and, therefore, memorable form
3. Flat Characters / Rounded Characters
4. Little emotional impact or arousal / Good emotional impact and arousal
5. Emphasis on phrase book learning / Emphasis on real communication
6. Emphasis on translation / Emphasis on spontaneous response
7. Early presentation of large grammar segments / Grammar rules introduced when the student is ready to learn them
8. Rote learning of grammar / Grammar taught in easy to remember and pleasurable format
9. Spoken slowly / Language spoken at normal rhythm
10. Based on the assumption that learning is difficult / Based on the fact that people learn quickly when blocks are removed
11. No concert sessions / Concert sessions
12. Everyday experience normally presented in straight forward format / Everyday experience presented in imaginative format that stimulates visualisation
13. Frequent repetition with emphasis on rote learning / Little repetition
14. Gives the suggestion "Keep at it ... don't be ambitious" / Gives suggestion that learning is easy and fast and backs that up with proof
15. Can take one year to learn 1000-2000 words / Can be learned in 75 hours
16. Creates tension in learner because of need to remember / All necessary knowledge is in a stress free presentation
17. No peripheral stimuli / Lots of peripheral stimuli
18. Stress on Auditory Learning and reading / Comprehensive use of all learning styles
