The Effect of "Superlearning Techniques" on the Vocabulary Acquisition and Alpha Brainwave Production of Language Learners

Abstract

This study investigated the applicability of techniques adapted from Lozanov's Suggestopedia described in Ostrander and Schroeder (1979). Lack of scientific validity in experiments substantiating claims about Suggestology as cited in Scovel's review of Lozanov's Suggestology and outlines of Suggestopedy, prompted this investigation. While using relaxation tapes manufactured by Superlearning, Inc., methodology, and an electroencephalograph to measure brainwave activity during sessions, twenty-one adult intensive English students, language teachers, and graduate music education students were taught a discrete 300-word German language vocabulary list over a five week period, both with Baroque music (n=7) and without Baroque music (n=7). A no-contact control group (n=7) learned the same vocabulary by methods using a teacher in a classroom setting. Analysis of language acquisition data revealed no significant improvement across the five-week experimental period. Also, no significant drop in scores across the experimental period suggests that vocabulary was retained in all groups. When modes of presentation were compared, those taught by a traditional classroom method learned significantly more vocabulary than those taught by techniques. Left hemisphere monitoring of brainwaves showed no significant changes in Alpha brainwave rhythms across the experimental period in any group. There was no significant increase in Alpha activity during relaxation sessions or during language presentation sessions in the areas of the brain which were monitored. Although scrupulous care to preserve Superlearning methodology was taken in this investigation, accelerated learning could not be substantiated. In the educational system of the United States, there has traditionally been a bias toward rational, linear, logical modes of learning which are consistent with the cognitive processes and hierarchies of growth described by Piaget. Research continues to indicate that the areas of the two cerebral hemispheres