The Lozanov Teaching Method/Suggestopedia : A Comparative Study of Suggestopedic Practice andTraditional Teaching of Foreign Languages

This is a qualitative research project aimed to compare traditional teaching of foreign languages and suggestopedia in order to seek an answer to whether the suggestopedic practice is compatible with traditional school. The theoretical framework is based on Michel Foucault’s history of ideas of how power has developed over time and how power structures have shaped society, institutions and consequently school. A theoretical review of how language didactics have evolved over the last centuries is added to Foucault’s ideas for the purpose of establishing a definition of traditional teaching. A collection of empirical material has been carried out by interviewing teachers practicing suggestopedic pedagogy and subsequently analyzed and interpreted from a phenomenological perspective, with a hermeneutic approach. The result of the study shows that school as an institution can be said to consist of an establishment maintained through coercion, control, assessment and ranking, factors that have consequences for how teaching is designed and thereby, as the study shows, implying a risk of leading to insecurity, stress, and anxiety. This seems to stand in contrast to the very basic attitude of suggestopedia which fundamental idea can be summarized in the effort to create an interplay between the subconscious, or passive, learning level and the active, conscious learning level which requires an environment characterized by safety, freedom, and for the student a sense of continually feeling competent. However, according to Foucault, the power structures described in the theoretical chapter pervade all of society why it could be stated that suggestopedia also constitutes a system of power. The comparative analysis could therefore give the impression of being somewhat misleading. The study does not result in a distinct answer to the question of whether there is room for suggestopedic practice in traditional school but rather discusses prerequisites and possibilitie