Suggestion

Suggestion is the key, which Lozanov found to penetrate through the “set-up” and stimulate the mental reserve capacities. Further more, through suggestion we can facilitate the creation of new, richer patterns of conscious/unconscious responses or new set-ups: “Suggestion is the direct road to the set-up. It creates and utilises such types of set-ups, which would free and activate the reserve capacities of the human being.” (Lozanov: The Key Principles of Suggestopedia”, Journal of SALT, 1976, p.15)

There are two basic kinds of suggestion: direct and indirect. Direct suggestions are directed to conscious processes, i.e. what one says that can and will occur in the learning experience, suggestions which can be made in printed announcements, orally by the teacher and/or by text materials. Direct suggestion is used sparingly, for it is most vulnerable to resistance from the set-up.

Indirect suggestion is largely unconsciously perceived and is much greater in scope than direct suggestion. It is always present in any communication and involves many levels and degrees of subtlety. Lozanov speaks of it as the second plane of communication and considers it to encompass all those communicative factors outside our conscious awareness, such as voice tone, facial expression, body posture and movement, speech tempo, rhythms, accent, etc. Other important indirect suggestive effects result from room arrangement, decor, lighting, noise level, institutional setting - for all these factors are communicative stimuli which result in what Lozanov terms, non-specific mental reactivity on the paraconscious level (at the level of the set-up). And they, like the teacher and materials, can reinforce the set-up, preserve the status quo, or can serve in the de-suggestive-suggestive process. In other words, everything in the communication/learning environment is a stimulus at some level, being processed at some level of mental activity. The more we can do to orchestrate purposefully the unconscious, as well as the conscious factors in this environment, the greater the chance to break through or “de-suggest” the conditioned, automatic patterns of our inner set-up and open the access to the great potential of our mental reserves.