How NLP has helped my Teaching

October 1st 2004

Dear Mario,
This is Jolanta writing ( July 2003 Pilgrims NLP Course) from Poland.

Yes, NLP has had a dramatic effect on me at all levels. Mind you, it has always been somewhere deep inside me. I just did not know it was NLP, maybe because it was kind of shapeless. Now that it has taken shape I can see things more clearly and am much more confident in what I'm doing.

A few examples from the classroom level:

• I use hundreds of activities I learnt about at the course or have read about in HLT or the books you have recommended.
• I use a lot more stories in the classroom, some of them with metaphorical meaning
• I tell some of the stories myself with an actress-like manner. I had never suspected I could do it! Sometimes I tell stories sitting from the back of the class ( the students cannot see me) and observing them being mesmerised.
• I do try to deal with subjects from a more general point of view ( in spite of being a horrible detailist ). In fact I have become obsessed about giving students an overall picture before the details of whatever I am doing.
• Quite by chance I came across Tony Buzan's " The Mind Map Book" and I instantly recalled Alito's "spiderwebs". Do you remember? I think mind maps are very helpful in explaining certain grammar areas. I have drawn myself mind maps of modal verbs, conditionals and perfect tenses.

Yes, I have been thinking about writing something for HLT. I might give it try after the academic year has got going.

With warm wishes for good health,

Jolanta S, Poland

The above feedback was written 15 months after the end of a two week course.

The letter below was much more immediate feedback, written about a month after the course ended.

16th of Sept, 2003

Dear Mario,
I writing just to tell you the outcome of my August NLP course.

First I swear I had to go through the photocopies and written material THREE TIMES MINIMUM, and even more with some of them. This was done mostly on the beach as I tend to study much better with children and air breeze round.

Then I had to sort out all the important, imminent stuff and translate it into Spanish to hand in to the local government (I had a Grundvig grant) and for use with my unemployed adult female students. And finally, after having digested all this, I am putting it into practice with these ten women I have to teach.

I have to tell you one thing: THEY LOVE IT. I was initially afraid how they would react to NLP considering their cultural level. I simply changed the horribly posh words into more colloquial ones and with easy, clear-to-see outcomes: simple strategies, considering the little I still know, but which are proving to be efficient.

Another outcome is that Joyce (NLP course participant who teaches in Japan) and I are working with mutual supervision on a once-a-week basis. Right now we are negotiating each other's needs and expectations- difficult for both of us. I will let you know how this e-mail supervision goes.

And a third outcome from the course is that I am going to start designing in October. Mind you, I don't feel confident about it …. But if the course hadn't made me think about the possibilities I would still be denying myself the chance to do it.

...........

Camino G

The NLP course description can be viewed here.