Desuggestopedia - The Reduction of Psychological Barriers

Abstract or Introduction

Children learn at a different speed and rate. There is a huge variety of different teaching methods. One of these methods is invented by Georgi Lozanov. His desuggestopedia theory believes in the power of students’ feelings and puts the main focus on them. “The reason for our inefficiency […] is that we set up psychological
barriers to learning: We fear that we will be unable to perform, that we will be limited in our ability to learn, that we will fail.”
At first the change of the name has to be explained. The originator documents his theories on his present homepage:

[…] some not qualified person understood suggestion as a kind of hypnosis. But now with the term desuggestion it is easier to understand that it is not possible to think about hypnosis in suggestopedia. Only freedom of personality, inner freedom.

These are the reasons for changing the name. The only cause were the feelings and ideas of the people who deal with this term. The task of desuggestopedia is to help students to eliminate negative feelings. They do not have to be afraid of answering questions or being unsuccessful. Moreover, they should feel free in the whole learning process.
I agree with the opinion of this method that the reduction of mental barriers causes a strengthened self-confidence and prevents students from thinking about the fear of failure and this leads to a better attitude for learning.
With the help of the information and observations from the Diane Larsen-Freeman book I will present how the “psychological barriers” vanish.