Nurturing
reading and writing potential
via Neuro-Linguistic
Programming
by
Tom Maguire
A three minute introduction to “Neuro-Linguistic Programming” would go like this: Ladies and Gentlemen, to be successful in life you only need to remember three things:
Firstly, know what you want; have a clear idea of your goal in each situation.
Secondly, be alert and keep your senses open so as to know what you are getting.
Thirdly,
be flexible enough to change your behaviour until you get what you want.
Goal,
Sensitivity, Flexibility
Neuro-Linguistic
Programming (NLP) begins with an interest in people; it’s about how we do
things. NLP in Education tells us about how we, ourselves and our students,think
and learn. It does this by enabling us to explore the structure of our own
subjective experience: how we construct our view of the world. Used in Education
NLP empowers us to submerge into the inner, virtual-world image each of us
creates as a way of understanding the outside world.
An analogy of NLP is the
example of a history teacher I know. He is currently spending a lot of his free
time learning to program a Roman house in virtual reality. His aim is to be able
to take his students for a virtual walk round the house so that they can explore
it in 3D. In a similar way NLP techniques enable us to demonstrate to students
their own inner learning processes.
This
brings them much closer to learning to manage their own rich internal software:
their images, sounds and feelings. Bit-by-bit they will come to understand and
even learn how to control the way they think. In short they will learn how to
learn.
This
is surely our goal as educators.
Class
Activities
I
Reading
You
can introduce your students to their own creativity through this activity:
Ask
some students to tell you the story of the latest film they have seen. Ask
pertinent questions about the visuals (scenery, clothes, colours, special
effects. . .), the sounds (music, lyrics, voices, sound effects. . .) and what
they may have felt about the film (sadness? happiness? fear? )
Congratulate
your students on their natural ability to recreate pictures, sounds and
feelings.
Say
that today’s activity will extend that ability.
Use
the next reading from the class textbook. Have your students guess possible
storylines from the title and note them on the board. Now hand out
copies and invite everyone to read the text to check which guess comes
closest to reality.
Remind your students to
picture the scenes in the story while reading,
just as they did when remembering the
film. Say that you’ll be asking questions
about their pictures afterthey have read it.
Verify
the accuracy of guesses, ask a few questions about the textual
information then ask a lot of questions about information which is not in
the text. Challenge students to
describe the main characters, the setting, and the
sounds which they attribute to the story. Ask them how they feel about
the conflict in the story and about the end.
After
students have answered the questions congratulate them congruently on their
ability to visualise.
You
might like to inform students that research like that of Brian Tomlinson in
Japan has found that those people who created pictures in their head while they
were reading recalled the story better. He also found that it was easy to boost
recall in others simply by reminding them to visualise while reading.
Point
out that visualisation is important because visualisation = comprehension.
II
Writing
One
fun way of stimulating students’ imagination prior to written work is called
guided imagery. This is the procedure:
Announce to students that
you are going to help them to describe their Halloween celebrations in writing.
Explain unusual vocabulary in the story below. Then say, “Everyone get into a
comfortable position for listening to a story. You can close your
eyes while listening if you like.”
You
are at home ... tomorrow is Halloween ... everyone goes to school dressed
up ... you must look for something to put on ... you remember other times
when you dressed up ... you think
about the clothes you put on ... you talk to your friends ... do they have any
ideas? ... you remember an unusual character that
you saw and liked ... you have decided to dress up ... describe your
character’s clothes ... is there a hat? ... do you need something for
your hands? ... will you wear a
mask? ... do you need to paint your face? ... which
colours? ... you are with your friends now ... how do you feel? ... What
do you talk about? ... Now the
carnival has ended and you have had a good time
... you feel relaxed and ready to write about your experience ... you
return to class here and now.”
Here
is an authentic example of one 15-year-old’s daydream, written during a class
:
Halloween
I
am dressed up as a christmas tree. I made the dress with green cardboard that I
cut it in the shape of a tree. Then I fixed on the cardboard some christmas
balls made of cardboard too. I fixed the two cardboards with a rubber band. Then
I put it on.
Under
the tree dress I wore a green jersey, brown trousers and brown shoes. I painted
my nails in green, and with a green lip-stick I made up my lips. I painted my
eyes with green colours too. I put stardust in my face too. When I went to the
high school I felt a little ridiculous, but then I felt very proud of my dress
because everybody said that it was very original and I was the only christmas
tree in all the high school. But I saw other dresses that were fantastic, like a
crisp bag.
When
I arrived home I had a shower and I spent a lot of time because I had to take
off all the make-up. But the effort was worth-while.
Maguire - NLP in Education The Internet TESL Journal Reading and Writing through Neuro-Linguistic Programming. Email: motme@redestb.es