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Parrot fashion repetition does not work. It is a superficial use of words. A relaxed involvement in your subject via interesting activities and games that require COMMUNICATION does work. That is the route to Accelerated Learning and it is why, when we devised our Language Programmes, we chose to teach via stories, and by real life dialogues, in which the learner literally acts out the roles.

In a review of learning methods that have incorporated the principle of involvement, Stevick picks out four in particular:

1. Total Physical Response, developed by V. N. Asher, concentrated especially on teaching pupils by commands from the earliest stage. Commands demanded a response and thus involvement. Passivity does not create the best environment for learning - but committed activity does. The more arousal you create in the learner the better. As researcher J. B. Brierly noted `What is important and emotionally charged, is more rapidly embedded than that which is neutral.’

Tests by Kleinsmith and Kaplan as early as 1963, showed that high arousal words were three times better remembered than neutral words - so pairing high arousal words with more neutral words becomes a good strategy in teaching a language. In psychological terms the strategy ensures that the limbic system and the new brain are interacting and that turns on the full power of the brain.

2. “Liberated Spanish” developed by Keith Saucer of Fresno USA. His first step is to teach the vocabulary of disagreement. In this way he automatically engages the involvement of his students, because an argument produces arousal.

3. “Community Language Learning” or C.L.L. developed by leading language researcher C. A. Curran. One of Currans’s primary techniques is to create a circle of pupils and a warm friendly atmosphere. He then tape records statements made by the students in the new language. This tape is played back and analysed. The process again automatically involves the participants since they are listening to their own voices.Curran is particularly adept at phrasing questions in a way that provokes involvement. Thus “describe Mary” (a character in a story) is not nearly as involving as “say what you like, or what you dislike, about Mary.”

Taken From: Accelerated Learning