What causes the human brain to process and understand language? Where in the brain are the words we learn stored? Why do words come to mind when we sometimes forget them? People who speak multiple languages, what prevents them from interfering with each other? All of these processes are through neurolinguistics, by studying how language is represented in the brain. This area studies how and where the brain stores linguistic knowledge in its different presentations: spoken, signed or written. Although intertwined with psycholinguistics, which is the study of the understanding and production of language in its spoken, written and signed forms, neurolinguistics focuses on the mechanisms of the brain.
The brain stores information in networks of neurons that connect to parts that control movement, such as speech, and internal and external sensations, such as sound. Learning knowledge or skills occurs when new connections are made and existing ones are strengthened.
In the 1970s, Richard Bandler and John Grinder, researchers at the University of California at Santa Cruz, hypothesized that thought patterns explained people’s successes within these brain connections. For years, Bandler and Grinder have analyzed education, business, and all the successful therapies people have in common, including communication habits. At this last point, they realized that successful people involve body language, and that’s how researchers began to create thought models to improve their physical and emotional states. This is called neurolinguistic programming (NLP).
What is neurolinguistic programming?
Neurolinguistic programming is a way to change a person’s thoughts and habits to be successful through techniques of perception, behavior and communication. This is a pseudo-scientific approach based on neural connections, specifically how they process language. It has become popular among alternative approaches to personal development or self-help. According to the NPL Empowerment Partnership page, NLP “learns the language of your own brain” or “a user manual.” It is based on three parts: “neuro”, which is the neurological system, “linguistic”, which is the message, both verbal and non-verbal, which is sent to the brain; and “programming”, that is, how the mind processes these messages.
People learn through sensory experiences, so they send a message to the brain which will interpret the information based on those experiences. Neurolinguistic programming then attempts to detect and modify each person’s unconscious limitations within their mental connections. For example, suppose a person associated broccoli with something unpleasant because, as a child, his parents forced him to eat it before playing as an adult. In this case, he will avoid eating anything that contains this vegetable. Although this perception does not reflect his current reality or is based on taste, as long as it does not alter his mental connection with broccoli, his aversion will persist. Neurolinguistic programming will make it possible to modify these limitations.
There is currently a debate as to whether neurolinguistic programming is pseudoscience or not due to the lack of empirical evidence. Its success has only been measured through the testimonies of those who lived it. Part of the debate stems from early attempts to assess NLP, as researchers have found no connection between mental processing, language, and eye movements. This result left a stigma on neurolinguistic programming, leaving the ground for the need to address this problem by participating more fully in research.
Neurolinguistic programming in education
Knowing about neurolinguistic programming gives educators the advantage of understanding what motivates students and tailoring the way they teach learning to suit their needs. This area offers learning strategies that help students develop skills for more optimal learning and provides teachers with tools to deal with challenging behaviors.
Two neurolinguistic programming techniques, perceptual positioning and presupposition are considered useful in solving various educational problems. The first refers to the ability to see things from the point of view of others. In the classroom, the teacher can perform exercises where students with different opinions are forced to adopt the other’s point of view by switching places. This exercise generates active participation and physical movement, which triggers a much deeper shift in thinking than just asking them to see the other person’s point of view.
Presupposition, the second technique, relates to meanings not spoken in conversation. For example, when a teacher allows students to choose between finishing the questions right away or starting another activity, such as brainstorming. It is understood that both actions must be done, but giving them the choice causes them to focus more on the work and not to defy instructions.
While these seem like simple things the teacher may already be using, a deeper understanding of NLP will help them develop more skills to learn better. Although much research lacks neurolinguistic programming and education, in 2003 two researchers submitted an article titled “Neurolinguistic Programming: It is a Potential for Learning and Teaching in Formal Education”, in which they were discussing its usefulness for learning.
For Paul Tosey and Jane Mathison, the authors of the article, neurolinguistic programming involves all teachers influencing the way students learn through their use of space and language, even if they are not. not aware.
Here are some of the main points of the survey:
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To have a good teacher-student relationship, you need mutual feedback. It should be dynamic, not a transmission of information from one individual to another separate subject.
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People, including educators, act according to how they see the world.
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A student’s representation and processing of information is reflected differently in their language and behavior.
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Skills, beliefs and behaviors are learned. Teaching is a process by which such habits are learned and changed.
All communication potentially influences learning. Teacher language and behavior affect the student in two ways, his understanding of the subject itself and his beliefs about the world.
Because the fathers of neurolinguistic programming, Bandler and Grinder, sought to identify what distinguishes a successful person, the field has become a means of studying how people process information, make neural connections, and develop skills. to get results. According to the researchers, learning the learning process translates into in-depth teaching methods and instruction, which allows students to be successful.
For Paul Tosey and Jane Mathison, these variations “involve changes in factors such as the abstractions that people have constructed that shape their beliefs about learning, their view of their own future, their constructions on themselves as ‘learners, all related to the sights, sounds, bodily sensations, tastes and smells that seem to be an essential part of human information processing. “
Translation by Daniel Wetta.
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