Introduce HARD TIMES through NLP techniques
NLP, which stands for Neuro Linguistic Programming, has been defined as the art and science of
excellence. Its techniques have been extensively used also in language education. The activities I
am going to present, for instance, try to illustrate how some NLP patterns, like representational
systems can be exploited to improve students involvement in literary texts.
Representational systems are the different mental operations through which we experience the
world and represent it to ourselves. We can represent it through the visual organs, the auditory
organ, the kinaesthetic organs, the olfactory organ or the gustative one (VAKOG). Even though in
everyday life we use all the five organs according to the situation we have to face, each of us
tends to have a favourite organ.
In the activity described below, students are stimulated first to create a mental picture of an
extract they have read , and then gradually guided to adjust it, using their favourite
representational system. The aim is to enable them to build a picture that is unique and relevant to
them.
The passage is one from chapter 5 of Hard Times by Charles Dickens, which introduces
Coketown, the place where the novel is set.
STEP 1 . After reading the extract, students are asked to create a mental picture of it.
STEP 2. Through a series of questions, I guide them to add details to the picture, to mwke it clear
and alive as possible. Students do not have to answer the questions I ask aloud, but have to
interiorise their answers. The questions aim at triggering off all the five organs, in order to give
each student the possibility to use his/her favourite one.
Here are some of the questions I ask:
- Is your picture colour or black & white?
- Is it blurred or focused?
- Is it dark or bright?
- Are there any sounds?
- Are the sounds harsh or soft?
- Is it big or small?
- What shape does it have?
- Are you inside or outside the picture?
STEP.3 Now, students are guided to modify the elements they put in their pictures, in order to
arrive at a really satisfactory image of them. The following are some examples of the instructions I
give.
- If the picture is colour make it black and white (or vice versa)
- Make the picture blurred/focused
- Make it dark/bright
- Add /remove sounds
- Make it harsh/soft
- Make it big/smaller
- Change its shape
- Get in/out of the picture
STEP 4 Finally students are asked to sit in groups and “actualise” their picture, either by
drawing it or describing it to their classmates. They are prompted to discuss differences and
similarities, the feelings they felt while creating them, and the details they put in them. The result
will be an incredible amount of communication and the feeling of having experienced the text
without any interference from the teacher, book or criticism.
