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Suggestopedia is supposed to be one of the most innovative, and occasionally strange, humanistic teaching approaches thought up by a physiotherapist and doctor named Georgi Lozanov in the early 1970s. The idea is to use this teaching method in a manner based on the functioning of the human brain and its workings. Suggestopedia is the combination of suggestion and teaching methodology or pedagogy. So any accelerated-learning methodology or approach is going to come under the umbrella of Suggestopedia.

Suggestopedia started out as a method that was used in the teaching of foreign languages. It was implied that the implementation of Suggestopedia could help you learn a language three times faster than any other ordinary teaching method. Now this method is being used in a number of other fields, especially with subjects that require a lot of memorization.

There was a time when Suggestopedia was quite acclaimed; it also had its detractors. There are plenty of elements in this particular teaching approach that are still surviving and being practiced by teachers and instructors today.

Suggestopedia is based on suggestion. Using positive suggestion to teach a student is going to encourage him to learn more. It is also going to stimulate the learning process in a positive manner. A focused and relaxed state of mind is most receptive to the learning process. This can be brought about by a relaxing and comfortable environment, the use of soothing music, and a good understanding and relationship between the instructor and student. Music is a major component in Suggestopedia learning approaches and strategies.

Other teaching methods have an orderly approach towards teaching a new language to students. Suggestopedia does not go with the systematic and methodical fashion of teaching stepwise. The learning items are presented in a seemingly haphazard fashion in the form of long dialogues, vocabulary lists, and grammatical observations. The dialogues are read out by students to a musical accompaniment in the background. The idea is to focus the brain on the music and the words so that the intonation and the rhythm of the spoken language can be incorporated and assimilated in the mind subconsciously.

Suggestopedia is also quite particular about the relaxing atmosphere in which the seating arrangements should stimulate the learning process with soothing lighting and décor. After the reading has been done, the teacher is going to use those same read-out dialogues for giving the students lessons in language practice. The idea is that the dialogue has already been assimilated by the student because his brain is in a receptive state of mind and he is going to respond to the teacher’s queries instinctively.

Many people think that Suggestopedia is definitely not as effective as it claims to be. That is because reading out lots of dialogues without understanding the grammatical rules and a solid language theory to back the knowledge is going to be more confusing than motivating. And some people think the idea of listening to long-winded dialogues to the sound of music to be faintly ridiculous.

All the same, certain approaches of Suggestopedia can be used, especially in matters of décor, to create a relaxing and positive motivational effect in the classroom. Apart from this, games, songs, and texts that are dramatized are all positive learning approaches that can enhance the learning process considerably.

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