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Language Awareness Methodology in ELT Learning and learning styles Teaching Business English Teaching General English  

“There’s nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so” William Shakespeare

NLP in ELT

Neurolinguistic Programming is a “training philosophy”. Here there are some of the exercises based on NLP. You can do these with your students (SS).

SEE

HEAR

FEEL

SMELL

TASTE

Ask your students: How do you first represent the word in your mind: Do you SEE the thing or do you SEE the word? Do you HEAR the sound the thing makes or HEAR the word being spoken? Do you FEEL the thing either physically or emotionally?  Do you SMELL it? DO you TASTE it? Write the word in the appropriate column.

Try to identify the very first thing you do. If you smell it, for example, are you sure that you don’t get a quick image first? Do not think too long – you can probably represent almost anything in a variety of ways if you think about it long enough.

RAIN
SILK
ONION
COMPUTER
TELEPHONE
GARLIC
STORY BOOK
MOON
RIVER
GRASS
BUSS
SAND
ROSE
CHURCH
LEATHER
COFFEE
FISH
CAT
TRAIN
BABY
FRIEND
YOURSELF
YOUR COUNTRY
LONDON
POLITICS
LEARNING ENGLISH
MATHS
LOVE
THE FUTURE

Did you have more words in one or two columns more than others? What do you think it means? Does it surprise you?

NLP SPELLING TECHNIQUE

  1. Hold a card up with the word on it, or write it high on the board, so that SS have to look up to see it.
  2. Tell the SS consciously to blink their eyes to take a mental photograph of the word.
  3. They close their eyes and picture the word clearly, looking up inside their heads to see the “photograph” they have just taken.
  4. They write down the word from memory
  5. Repeat 1-4 as often as necessary until SS know the word. If necessary break long words into shorter sections, or ask SS to imagine any problem parts bigger.   They can also try making the whole word bigger in their heads.
  6. To prove their success, ask them to visualize the word and then spell it “backwards” by “reading” the letters from their heads. This is only possible if they can “see” it.

FEEDBACK

Learners need constructive feedback to know what they could do differently. Focus on the solution rather than the problem. See mistakes as useful feedback for your teaching. Concentrate less on  the mistake itself than on the reason of making it.

REFRAMING: CHANGING WORDS, CHANGING MINDS

Mistake----lesson

Ending----new beginning

Terrorist----freedom fighter

Make a list of some negative things you say to yourself and write a reframe next to each one. Does that change how you feel about them?

“Whether you think you can, or think you can’t….you’re right!” Henry Ford

Our teachers always told us to underline the words we didn’t understand. Even when we  subsequently did understand them, we were forever reminded  of our previous limitations.

We encourage our students to underline or highlight the words they do understand. As they learn more, they literally fill in the gaps and underline more. They are working towards success.

KNOWING WHERE YOU ARE GOING

·        If you want to reach your goals, have some.
·
        Have classroom outcomes for yourself and your students. Share your outcomes with the SS: knowing where they are going helps them to learn.
·
        Help your SS to set their own outcomes.
·
        Dream –and encourage your SS to dream.
·
        Break down big outcomes into smaller, more easily achievable ones.
·
        Remember: The longest journey starts with a single step.

DO WE ALWAYS SAY WHAT WE REALLY WANT TO SAY?

What can be the situation for the following. Did people really want to say this? What exactly did they mean?

“This is to let you know that there’s a smell coming from the man next door.”

“My toilet is blocked and we can’t bathe the children until it is cleaned.”

“Our kitchen floor is very damp, we have two children and would like a third, so will you send someone to do something about it?”

“Will you please send someone to mend our broken path? Yesterday my wife tripped and fell on it and is now pregnant.”

LIFELINE

Draw a line and mark against it the key events in your life. Focus particularly on events which  illustrate an aspect of your character, where you learnt something significant, or where you gained a skill or recourse (sense of humour, courage, humility etc).

  1. What were the turning points?

  2. What patterns of experience, achievement or lessons can you see?

  3. Which things enhanced and enriched your life?

  4. Which things would you avoid in the future?

  5. What were the positive outcomes or intensions of any negative events?

  6. What does the purpose of your life seem to have been so far?

  7. What resources have you gained? Link specific resources to specific moments or events.

  8. What have you learnt….from life? …..from doing this activity?

JOB APPLICATION

  1. Make a list of all the roles you play in your life, e.g. business partner, mother, lover, neighbour, counselor (for friends’ problems), plumber, cleaner, artist, mathematician (children’s homework, supermarket checkout), cook etc. One role per line.

  2. Imagine each of your roles is a job you’re applying for. Alongside each one, write down the personal qualities you bring to each job. Remember you really, really need this job, so only write down the qualities which will help you to get it. (You have to be honest, although a little exaggeration is only to be expected).

  3. Talented, aren’t you? If you have any other qualities you don’t seem to be using at the moment, write them down now.

  4. When you’ve finished, look at the “jobs “ for which you do not seem to have a lot of qualities and see whether you could add any of the qualities that you have in other areas.

ADJECTIVES TO MIME (IN PAIR, AS A WHOLE CLASS)

happy
bored
embarrassed
doubtful
sad
tired
confident
proud
angry
impressed
patient
alert
frightened
unimpressed
amused
interested

WHAT YOU THINK YOU ARE TEACHING AND WHAT THE LEARNERS ARE LEARNING ARE NOT NECESSARILY THE SAME.

Adapted from “In your hands. NLP in ELT” by Jane Revell and Susan Norman