NLP Theory and Best Practice

Learner-centred Training with NLP

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T A B L E O F C O N T E N T S

Part I:

Learning and Neuro-Linguistic-Programming -

A Theoretical Discourse

1 Introduct ion.............................................................................................................................................7

2 The Nature of Learning ....................................................................................................................9

2.1 What is Learning? ............................................................................................................................9

2.2 The Brain as a Basis for Learning ...........................................................................................12

2.3 Other Factors of Influence on Learning ...............................................................................14

2.4 Learning Theories ...........................................................................................................................16

2.4.1 S t i m u l u s - R e s p o n s e- L e a r n i n g ....................................................................................................16

2.4.2 I n s t r u m e n t a l L e a r n i n g ( O p e r a n t C o n d i t i o n i n g ) .....................................................................17

2.4.3 O b s e r v a t i o n a l L e a r n i n g ..............................................................................................................19

2.4.4 C o g n i t i v e L e a r n i n g .....................................................................................................................20

2.4.5 C o n s t r u c t i v i s m ............................................................................................................................20

2.4.6 Mul t ip l e In t e l l i gences .................................................................................................................21

2.5 How Learning and Teaching Differ ........................................................................................21

3 Educat ional Training in Change ............................................................................................. 24

3.1 The Status Quo .................................................................................................................................24

3.2 New Trends in Educational Training ....................................................................................26

4 Neuro - Linguist ic-Programming (NLP) ................................................................................ 30

4.1 Definit ion and Development .......................................................................................................30

4.2 Philosophy and Principles of NLP ...........................................................................................31

4.2.1 E a c h h u m a n -b e i n g i s u n i q u e .....................................................................................................32

4.2.2 The map i s no t t he t e r r i t o ry .......................................................................................................32

4.2.3 Our behav iou r i s t he r e su l t o f ou r s t a t e o f be ing ...................................................................32

4.2.4 W h a t i s p o s s i b l e f o r o n e p e r s o n i s p o s s i b l e f o r a n y o n e .......................................................33


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4.2.5 T h e m e a n i n g o f y o u r c o m m u n i c a t i o n i s t h e r e s p o n s e y o u g e t . ..........................................33

4.3 Methods and Techniques of NLP .............................................................................................34

4.3.1 M o d e l l i n g .....................................................................................................................................34

4.3.2 T h e A r t o f P e r c e i v i n g P e o p l e - V A K ( V i s u a l - Aud i to ry - K inaes the t i c ) .........................35

4.3.3 R a p p o r t .........................................................................................................................................37

4.3.4 P a c i n g a n d L e a d i n g ....................................................................................................................38

4.3.5 R e f r a m i n g .....................................................................................................................................38

4.3.6 T h e M e t a M o d e l o f L a n g u a g e ..................................................................................................39

4.3.7 The Mi l t on - M o d e l ......................................................................................................................42

4.3.8 M e t a p h o r s .....................................................................................................................................43

4.3.9 A n c h o r i n g .....................................................................................................................................43

4.3.10 W i n- W i n .......................................................................................................................................44

4.4 Combining NLP- Elements with Learning Theories ........................................................45

4.5 NLP as a Modern and Holist ic Concept ...............................................................................47

4.5.1 N L P a n d M i n d M a p p i n g ............................................................................................................47

4.5.2 N L P a n d S u p e r l e a r n i n g ..............................................................................................................48

4.5.3 N L P a n d M e n t a l T r a i n i n g ..........................................................................................................49

Part II:

NLP in Practice

5 Methodology ......................................................................................................................................... 51

5.1 Interviews ...........................................................................................................................................51

5.2 The Experts ........................................................................................................................................51

5.3 The Quest ionnaire ..........................................................................................................................53

6 NLP in Training Situations ......................................................................................................... 59

7 NLP and Language Learning .................................................................................................... 66

7.1 What Makes Language Learning Diff icult..........................................................................66

7.2 NLP - Methods and Exercises in Language Classes ........................................................67

7.3 Feedback from Trainees ..............................................................................................................75

8 NLP in Communicat ion - "Sel l ing“ ....................................................................................... 90

8.1 What Makes a Good Sel ler .........................................................................................................90


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8.2 NLP – Methods and Exercises in Communicat ion Training.......................................91

8.3 Feedback from Trainees ..............................................................................................................96

9 NLP and Content Learning .......................................................................................................110

9.1 What Makes Content Learning Diff icult ...........................................................................110

9.2 NLP – Methods and Exercises for Content Learning...................................................111

9.3 Feedback from Trainees ............................................................................................................114

Part III:

Conclusions and Recommendations

10 Cri t ical Thoughts and Recommendat ions .........................................................................129

11 References ...........................................................................................................................................134

12 Appendix ...............................................................................................................................................139

12.1 Glossary of Te rms ...................................................................................................................139

12.2 Guide for Interview Quest ions...........................................................................................139

12.3 Questionnaire ............................................................................................................................139

12.4 Analysis of Questionnaire ....................................................................................................139

12.5 What Type of Learner are Yo u ? ......................................................................................139


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T A B L E O F FI G U R E S

Figure 1: Examples for mnemonics .......................................................................... 11

Figure 2: From Data to Knowledge and Learning .................................................... 12

Figure 3: Functions of the Hemispheres ................................................................... 13

Figure 4: Schematic Summary of Classical Conditioning ........................................ 17

Figure 5: Process of Observational Learning ............................................................. 19

Figure 6: Comparing Education Paradigms .............................................................. 22

Figure 7: Pedagogical Learning and Teaching Levels .............................................. 26

Figure 8: Impact on the Listener ............................................................................... 33

Figure 9: NLP Eye Movement Patterns .................................................................... 36

Figure 11: Swassing & Barbe Diagnostic Activity ................................................... 63

Figure 12: Quality of Seminar (Aricò) ....................................................................... 76

Figure 13: Individuality (Aricò) ................................................................................. 77

Figure 14: Awareness of Technique (Aricò) .............................................................. 78

Figure 15: Course Design (Aricò) .............................................................................. 79

Figure 16: Recognised Media in Ms. Aricò's Course (Aricò).................................... 79

Figure 17: Difference to Other Seminars (Aricò) ...................................................... 81

Figure 18: Competencies (Aricò) ............................................................................... 82

Figure 19: Putting Competencies into Practice (Aricò) ............................................. 83

Figure 20: Usefulness of Technique in Different Situations (Aricò)......................... 83

Figure 21: Emotional State (Aricò) ............................................................................ 84

Figure 22: Learner Types (Aricò) .............................................................................. 85

Figure 23: Mixed learner types distribution (Aricò) .................................................. 86

Figure 24: Importance of Positive Attitude (Aricò)................................................... 86

Figure 25: Beliefs (Aricò) .......................................................................................... 87

Figure 26: Important Positions for Learning (Aricò)................................................. 88

Figure 27: Meaning of NLP (Aricò) .......................................................................... 89

Figure 28: Precision Probing ...................................................................................... 95

Figure 29: Quality of Seminar (Stanek) ..................................................................... 97

Figure 30: Individuality (Stanek) ............................................................................... 98

Figure 31: Awareness of Technique (Stanek) ............................................................ 99


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Figure 32: Course Design (Stanek) ...........................................................................100

Figure 33: Recognised Media in Mr. Stanek’s Course (Stanek)...............................100

Figure 34: Difference to Other Seminars (Stanek) ....................................................101

Figure 35: Competencies (Stanek) ............................................................................102

Figure 36: Putting Competencies into Practice (Stanek) ..........................................103

Figure 37: Usefulness of Technique in Different Situations (Stanek) ......................103

Figure 38: Emotional State (Stanek) .........................................................................104

Figure 39: Learner Types (Stanek) ............................................................................105

Figure 40: Importance of Positive Attitude (Stanek) ................................................106

Figure 41: Beliefs (Stanek) .......................................................................................107

Figure 42: Important Positions for Learning (Stanek) ..............................................108

Figure 43: Meaning of NLP (Stanek)........................................................................109

Figure 44: Quality of Lecture (Ötsch) .......................................................................115

Figure 45: Individuality (Ötsch) ................................................................................116

Figure 46: Awareness of Technique (Ötsch) .............................................................117

Figure 47: Course Design (Ötsch) .............................................................................118

Figure 48: Recognised Media in Prof. Ötsch’s Lecture (Ötsch) ...............................118

Figure 49: Difference to Other Seminars (Ötsch) .....................................................119

Figure 50: Competencies (Ötsch) ..............................................................................120

Figure 51: Putting Competencies into Practice (Ötsch) ............................................120

Figure 52: Usefulness of Technique in Different Situations (Ötsch)........................121

Figure 53: Emotional State (Ötsch) ...........................................................................122

Figure 54: Learner Types (Ötsch) .............................................................................123

Figure 55: Mixed Learner-types Distribution (Ötsch) ..............................................123

Figure 56: Importance of Positive Attitude (Ötsch)..................................................124

Figure 57: Beliefs (Ötsch) .........................................................................................125

Figure 58: Important Positions for Learning (Ötsch)................................................126

Figure 59: Meaning of NLP (Ötsch) .........................................................................127


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PART I

LEARNING AND

NEURO-LINGUISTIC PROGRAMMING -

A THEORETICAL DISCOURSE


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1 Introduction

“May you live in interesting times.“ This Chinese proverb fits perfectly in our times.

Today's business world is very fast-moving, technological changes is occurring

faster and faster, globalisation proceeds quickly, information is abundant and

communication in a network that connects the whole world has become

commonplace. These are interesting times, aren't they?

The conditions of these times, however, demand very much of today's human-

beings. Not only do they need to show a high amount of flexibility and mobility, but

knowledge and abilities age very quickly, and everybody who wants to keep up-to-

date has to undergo a life-long learning process.

The rapid development in our world brings along a great deal of standardisation. ISO

9000, for instance, probably means something to everybody. Learners, however,

cannot be treated as standardised creatures. Every learner has his/her own

preferences and learns in different ways. Consequently, it should be a mission for

every trainer to encourage each learner in his/her individuality to enable trainees to

make use of their individual excellence to keep up in today's demanding learning-

process. Learner needs should be in the centre of interest.

The concept of Neuro-Linguistic -Programming (NLP) provides a significant

opportunity for a learner-centred approach in training situations. The three words

which are combined in this concept refer to our senses (neuro), the verbal and non-

verbal representations of our sensory-impressions (linguistic) and our ability to

organise ideas and actions (programming) (Bachmann 1999: 1f). Individuality and

tolerance are two terms to characterise NLP briefly. This is why it suits today's

training world perfectly.

The aim of this thesis is to embed the concept of Neuro-Linguistic -Programming in

the nature of learning. An overview of theory about learning will be given as well as

a compact introduction of Neuro-Linguistic -Programming, its principles and its


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methodology. Furthermore, an attempt will be made to place Neuro-Linguistic -

Programming among learning theories and other alternative learning techniques.

Incorporated in this concept is also an analysis of the changes learning and training

have started to undergo.

The practical part of this thesis presents the application of Neuro-Linguistic -

Programming in different training situations, i.e. language learning, communication

and selling, and content learning. These case studies provide expert knowledge of

trainers working with NLP and the results of a quantitative study conducted in one of

their courses.

In the author's view, this thesis has reached its purpose if it addresses learners and

trainers likewise. Learners may gain better tips for their own learning and become

aware of what learner types they are. The questionnaire in the appendix might help

learners to find out more about their learning processes in different areas. Especially

the third case-study which deals with content-learning and preparing for exams may

be a guide to a less stressful learning process and lead to a better quality of students'

lives.

On the other hand, the author hopes that this thesis may also be useful for any trainer

who is interested in designing learner-centred courses. From the description of the

case studies, which in particular deal with language learning, communication and

selling, content learning, preparing for exams, and providing expert knowledge,

trainers might gain new ideas to incorporate into their own training.

May these pages be of interest to you.


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2 The Nature of Learning

The following sections cover the theory about learning relevant to NLP. They deal

with the term learning, with the prerequisites for and influential factors on learning,

with learning theories and how learning and teaching differ.

2.1 What is Learning?

The term learning is used in variable ways in everyday life. Colloquially, it is

intensely tied to the institution “school“, where learning is the main task for years.

Many adults may remember grammar lessons, studying complicated mathematical

formula or historical dates. Furthermore, the common use of the term learning

includes the acquisition of skills like driving a car or bike-riding. These learning

situations are bound to the teacher as a mediator, whereas another description of

learning does not refer to a personal pedagogue at all: “Somebody has learned a

lesson from a specific situation“. This application of the term learning involves a

change of attitude or behaviour in response to a preceding experience. (Schermer

1998: 9). From the examples above learning can be defined as the process of

acquiring knowledge, abilities and skills by studying, being taught or gaining

experience. Although the process of learning itself is hard to define, the results are

clear: performance-improvement, new skills, clearer attitudes and a broader

knowledge (O'Connor 1996: 24).

The psychological sense of learning, however, must be understood in a different

context. Psychology refers to the term learning when a change of a former state has

taken place. In contrast to the colloquial use of learning, this change can go both

directions. It need not necessarily result in an improvement, but may also cause

deterioration (Schermer 1998: 10). When a car driver has an accident, for example,

he/she may learn to be afraid of driving and may lose his/her routine in driving a car.

Thus, the psychological term of learning includes the learning of anxieties and

security as well as the acquisition of preferences and aversions, habits and problem-

solving oriented thinking (Edelmann 1996: 5).


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However, a change in behaviour does not automatically result from a learning

process; it may also be caused by maturation (Edelmann 1996: 5). This becomes

obvious in the physical development of a child in his/her first years of life. When the

child starts walking, this is a development mainly caused by growth impulses of the

organism and not by experience or exercise. Maturation takes place without outside

resources, as the growth of the body normally cannot be influenced (Schermer 1998:

11).

There is, however, a difference between child and adult learning, which needs to be

explained, as its understanding is relevant in the context of this thesis. As a child, the

neural pathways are in formation and it is easier for a child to learn more than one

language, for example, than for an adult (Marjorie Rosenberg, personal

correspondence, March 18, 2000). Children learn in a very intuitive manner and very

much by playing, whereas adults use more of their left brain (see Section 2.2) and

learn analytically, which may make learning more difficult (Arico, personal

interview, February 2, 2000). Young children construct their knowledge best through

active, engaged, meaningful experiences that provide interaction with their

environment, and brain research indicates that learning is easier when experiences

are interconnected and not isolated or compartmentalised into subject areas (Harris

Helm 2000). Furthermore, children automatically develop mnemonics to support

their learning and memorising. Mnemonics are techniques to facilitate memorising

by making a picture in one's mind about the contents to be learned. The following

picture demonstrates an example of how children constructed pictures to memorise

the word-pairs “kite - hamburger“, “duck - shoe“, “tree - cow“ and “door - elephant“

(Mietzel 1997:134ff).


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Figure 1: Examples for mnemonics (Mietzel 1997: 135).

Studies have shown that adults rarely use mnemo-techniques spontaneously and

consequently have more difficulties in memorising these word-pairs (Ibid).

From the examples given above it can be assumed that adults lose or forget many of

the natural learning techniques they used to apply automatically as a child, which is a

pity, as these techniques are very effective. Often one can hear adults say “I cannot

learn any more“, which is not true, of course, as one learns every day, but traditional

schooling and teaching systems dictate a very narrow understanding of learning and

limit learners' abilities and perspectives (see also Sections 3.1 and 3.2). It is,

therefore, important to develop positive dispositions towards learning at an early age.

When young children are taught, teachers do not only provide opportunities to learn

knowledge and skills, but also develop attitudes towards learning and using those

skills. For example, how a child feels about reading can have long range effects on

the child's reading achievement (Harris Helm 1999).

From the statement above, another distinction has to be made � knowledge and

skills are not identical. The following chart describes very briefly the path from data

to knowledge and learning:


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Data

Information

Knowledge

Learning -> Skill

* Representations of facts

Data plus...

* Meaning * Understanding of patterns and relationships

Information plus...

* Beliefs * Commitments * Assumptions * Design for application

Knowledge plus...

* Application / action * Adaptation after application

Figure 2: From Data to Knowledge and Learning (modified from:

http://www.simplerwork.com/d/d3.thm)

Data do not become information until meaning has been successfully linked to them.

Knowledge is constructed if how to use all that information to do something is

mixed-in. Finally, if experience is added to the mix, learning and the development of

skills can take place (http://www.simplerwork.com/d/d3.htm). In the Encyclopaedia

Britannica Online skills are defined as “the ability to use one's knowledge effectively

and readily in execution or performance“ and as “a learned power of doing

something competently“ (http://members.eb.com/cgi-bin/dictionary). As Section 3.2

of this thesis will explain, knowledge is no longer enough in today's fast moving

world. “Knowing what“, i.e. information the learner has amassed and can reproduce

at the end of an education programme, is only the basis for the more important level

of “knowing how“, i.e. educational programmes that focus on the process, the skills

and attitudes the learner has adopted to enable him to learn more

(http://members.eb.com/bol/topic?eu=15101&sctn=16'415920). To express it in a

play on words, it is of utmost importance to the learner to develop the skill of

“knowing how“ to make best use of the “product“, i.e. “knowing what“.

2.2 The Brain as a Basis for Learning

The cerebral cortex is the main communication centre for interactions between a

person and the environment and, therefore, the most important part of the brain in the

context of learning. It is a nerve fibre of approximately one millimetre and forms the

outer cover of the cerebrum. The most important tasks of the cortex are the

processing of sensory impressions, the co-ordination of movements and cognitive


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performances such as speaking, thinking and learning. It can be divided into two

hemispheres; the left hemisphere, which controls the right half of the body, and the

right hemisphere controlling the left half of the body (Edelmann 1996: 21ff).

However, the specialisation of the hemispheres is not only to control the opposite

part of the body, but also a division of tasks. This phenomenon was shown in

experiments with split-brain patients. These are human-beings with a cut corpus

callosum, the nerve-fibre linking the two hemispheres. These patients were shown

the word “HATBAND“ in a way that the left half of the face could only see the part

“HAT“ and the right half only the part “BAND” When the patients were asked to tell

what they had seen, the answer was “BAND“. Upon the question, “Which band?“,

the persons could only guess the context, for example, a Rock and Roll Band.

However, when they were asked to select the object with the left hand among

various things the patients grasped the hat (Fortmüller 1991: 25f). An explanation for

this behaviour is that, as a rule, the linguistic function of a person is localised in the

left hemisphere, whereas the right hemisphere only shows a rudimentary linguistic

comprehension, but cannot use language actively (Eccles 1990: 269f). Consequently,

the strengths of the left hemisphere lie in analytical thinking and in understanding

and generating language, whereas the right hemisphere is very sensitive to the

reception of music, pictures and patterns (Fortmüller 1990: 26). The following figure

gives an overview of the different functions of the left and the right hemisphere:

Figure 3: Functions of the Hemispheres (Edelmann 1996: 31)

Right Hemisphere Left Hemisphere

linguistic conceptual

arithmetical analytical abstract

musical pictures patterns

geometrical

three-dimensional homogenous

concrete


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Due to these different areas of responsibilities of the hemispheres one could think

that human beings possess two brains (Fortmüller 1990, 26). It may not be omitted,

however, that the two hemispheres of a healthy person are joined by several hundred

millions of nerve-fibres, the corpus callosum, which enable the hemispheres to

communicate (Eccles 1990: 263). Furthermore, the functions are not totally

separated, as the right hemisphere is also capable of a rudimentary and passive

understanding of language as well as the left hemisphere is capable of an elementary

visual and three-dimensional perception (Springer & Deutsch 1988: 32ff).

Additionally, psychological theories argue as well that the semantic and the visual

hemisphere are not independent, but influence one another. A chart in addition to a

text may lead to a better perception and remembrance as well as an explanatory text

to a chart (Anderson 1988: 91ff). Today's complex and networked world demands

more integral thinking of persons and a view of problems in their entirety. Linear

thinking and the analytic functions of the left hemisphere are no longer enough

(Decker 1995: 45). Therefore, new learning techniques focus on the integration and

stimulation of both hemispheres. Its relevance for NLP (Neuro-Linguistic -

Programming) will also be shown in Section 4.5 of this thesis.

2.3 Other Factors of Influence on Learning

The two hemispheres are not the only influence on learning. The psycho-mental

field, which is an electronic field within the human brain, is also significant. It shows

different activity patterns which are measured in frequencies. In the Beta state our

brain is fully awake and concentrated, for example, when a person is actively

listening or carrying out demanding tasks under pressure. By contrast, in the Alpha

state a human being is also awake, but completely relaxed. This is a condition where

our brain is extremely active and creative. The REM state, which is an abbreviation

for Rapid-Eye-Movement, is the first phase of dreaming. This activity pattern shows

strong inner concentration and is very important for a person's health. A deeper

sleeping-phase is the Theta state followed by the Delta state with the lowest

frequencies. Especially three among these five brain activity patterns can be used for

mental programming and effective learning in a relaxed state: the Alpha, REM and

Theta phase. In traditional learning environments the Beta state with full


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concentration under stress and pressure was the only pattern regarded as relevant for

learning. Many alternative approaches to learning such as Superlearning and NLP,

however, focus more and more on the relaxed Alpha state, where the right

hemisphere dominates the left one. Emotions, creativity, metaphors and experience

become vivid and force rules and deep-rooted opinions which often block learning

into the background (Decker 1995: 53ff). The importance of a relaxed emotional

status for better learning results with applied NLP will also be explained in the

Sections 4.2.3 and 4.5 of this thesis.

Children normally like learning, but many of them leave school having learned to

hate it (O'Connor 1996: 85). Therefore, a good learning context, including a

comfortable learning environment, is essential to place the learner in a good

emotional state. Andrea Abele argues that even good or bad moods, which are less

intensive than emotions and are determined by experiences of success, failure, or by

physiological change, play an important role for optimal learning conditions (Abele

1996: 91ff).

Learning also requires motivation. Learning cannot take place when people are sent

to seminars to acquire skills somebody else considers as being important.

Unfortunately, this happens in many companies and can be applied to school as well

(O'Connor 1996: 31).

Furthermore, learners receive information through various sensory stimuli. The

literature distinguishes between the following learning styles in context with sensory

impressions (O'Connor 1996, 203f. and “NLP for dynamic training“ 1997):

• visual: The visual learner wants to see the contents and is pleased with videos,

films, notes on flipcharts, overhead-transparencies, etc. This learner type

remembers what he/she has seen in the seminar.

• auditory: Auditory learners want to hear the contents and like presentations with

many questions and answers. They remember what has been discussed in a

seminar, and their memory of the seminar can be compared to an “audio-

cassette“.


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• kinaesthetic: Kinaesthetic learners favour exercises and role plays. They learn by

doing and like exercises with motion. It is important to emphasise that this does

not mean that they do not pay attention. It is a prejudice from the traditional

school system that students have to sit still to be attentive.

Especially seminars with applied NLP focus on addressing the various sensory

impressions of learners and making them aware of their personal learning style. Each

learner has different attributes, and it seems to be most effective to create a personal

learning environment for each individual.

2.4 Learning Theories

Learning theories can be described as the attempt to structure and summarise the

knowledge of learning (Edelmann 1996: 7). An overview of learning theories

relevant to NLP will be presented briefly in the following sections. An analysis how

NLP can be seen with reference to learning theories can be found in Section 4.4.

2.4.1 Stimulus-Response-Learning

The original model of what today is known as Stimulus-Response-Learning is

Pavlov's Classical Conditioning. Pavlov's experiments with dogs showed that at least

in some areas classical conditioning can lead to a change in behaviour (Fortmüller

1991: 44). In the first stage of the experiment a dog received food and began to

salivate. The food can be seen as an unconditioned stimulus for the unconditioned

reaction, the salivation, which is an innate reaction and cannot be defined as

learning. In the second stage, the training-stage, a neutral stimulus, for example a

sound, was presented several times simultaneously with the food, the unconditioned

stimulus. In the third phase of the experiment the dog showed salivation already

when he heard the sound without receiving food. The sound is now a conditioned

stimulus, which leads to the conditioned reaction of salivation (Schermer 1998: 25f).

The following table shows a schematic summary of the process of classical

conditioning.


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Prerequisite unconditioned stimulus = food → unconditioned reaction

(salivation)

Training neutral + unconditioned stimulus

= sound + food

→ unconditioned reaction

(salivation)

Result neutral stimulus = conditioned

stimulus (sound)

→ conditioned reaction

(salivation)

Figure 4: Schematic Summary of Classical Conditioning (Schermer 1998: 26)

For a successful and stable stimulus-response-connection several factors are

significant: adequate timing of the stimulus presentation, the number of repetitions in

the training stage and sufficient breaks between the learning phases (Fortmüller

1991: 50).

Pavlov's concept of Classical Conditioning mainly focused on the activation of

muscles. Today the learning of emotional and motivational reactions is the primary

field of interest. Therefore, Pavlov's concept was expanded by other American

behaviourists such as Watson. In these approaches the stimulus does not need to be a

physical or chemical one, but the imagination of it already causes the reaction. For

example, a person does not need to be in a defective elevator to be afraid, but

thinking of such a situation already causes fear (Edelmann 1996: 56 and 61).

Pavlov's further developed theory is still relevant for today's learning situations. If a

teacher/trainer is able to design the courses in an interesting and fascinating way, this

can lead to a high learning motivation of trainees, as they are looking forward to the

lessons and connect positive emotions with the teacher and his/her course (Edelmann

1996: 93).

2.4.2 Instrumental Learning (Operant Conditioning)

In contrast to the concept of Classical Conditioning, the theory of Operant

Conditioning takes the consequences of a reaction into account. It is assumed that the

learning-success is dependent on positive and negative reinforcement. The first

theoretical and empirical principles of Operant or Instrumental Conditioning were

defined by E. L. Thorndike (Fortmüller 1991: 52ff). In his experiments a hungry

animal was locked in a cage. The hunger was the motivation for the animal to try to


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get out of the cage and, therefore, a prerequisite for the learning process. The animal

learns through “trial and error“. When it finally manages to get out of the cage, this

is a successful experience and a positive reinforcement, especially if the animal

additionally receives some food. Thorndike's experiments show that the animal

remembers the action of how to open the cage and can apply this behaviour quicker

each time the experiment is repeated (Schermer 1998: 46f and Fortmüller 1991: 54f).

Thorndike considers the reinforcement as a means to make stimulus-response-

connections more stable. However, for Skinner, who expanded Thorndike's theory,

the reinforcement is the factor which constitutes learning and influences behaviour

(Fortmüller 1991: 53 and 68). Skinner distinguishes between two different

behaviours, the respondent and the operant behaviour. The respondent behaviour

equals Pavlov's Stimulus-Response-Learning; the operant behaviour causes a certain

consequence that may have a reinforcing effect. Skinner carried out his experiments

in the famous Skinner Box, where a rat only got some food when it pressed the

correct button (Edelmann 1996: 107f). The reinforcement, however, can also be

negative, a punishment, to achieve a reduction of a certain behaviour (Fortmüller

1991: 69). In his essay, “The Science of Learning and the Art of Teaching“, Skinner

judges the teaching-practice at school harshly. He criticises that teachers mainly use

negative reinforcement and do not pay attention to students' individual learning

styles and that pupils are too passive in their role as learners. Skinner suggests

solving these problems by a systematic application of operant principles and

invented what is known as “programmed teaching“ (Schermer 1998: 78f).

The description above has only illustrated the reinforcement from outside. It is,

however, also possible to use the tool of self-reinforcement. The individual observes

his/her behaviour, evaluates it and reinforces it if the expected results are achieved.

Particularly new trends in educational training, such as self-access-learning, requires

the learner to use self-reinforcement as a motivational tool in the process of self-

management (Edelmann 1996: 120f).


19

2.4.3 Observational Learning

The behaviourist concepts, Stimulus-Response-Learning and Operant Theories, are

based on external regulation, whereas Bandura's Observational Learning Theory

emphasises the internal regulation of a person (Edelmann 1996: 281ff).

The main idea of observational learning is that the learner imitates the behaviour of a

certain model, which may either be a person as a life-model or a symbolic mediation,

for example, in a film or a text (Schermer 1998: 84). Bandura divides the process of

observational learning into two main phases � the acquisition phase and the

performance phase. These two phases can again be split into two processes.

Acquisition Process Attention Process Retention Process

Performance Process Motoric Reproduction Reinforcement and Motivational Processes

Figure 5: Process of Observational Learning

The first phase is the attention process. The interest of the observer in the model is

caused by specific characteristics of both subjects, which may be, for example, the

success and competence of the model or a positive relationship between model and

observer. In the following stage, the retention process, the observed behaviour is

either verbally or pictorially coded, and the actual learning process takes place. The

storage in the observer's memory assures that the behaviour can also be imitated

when the model is no longer present. With the retention phase the acquisition process

is completed, and the motoric reproduction phase starts the performance process.

The individual transforms the observed behaviour into real behaviour by inner

representation of the model. The observer will, however, hardly show the modelled

behaviour if this is negatively sanctioned. For Bandura, reinforcement is not a

necessary condition for the learning process, but it is seen as a motivating and

supporting factor for the attention process and integration (Edelmann 1996: 286f).

As mentioned in the introduction of this chapter, a connection of Observational

Learning to NLP, especially its technique of Modelling, will be discussed in Section

4.4 of this thesis.


20

2.4.4 Cognitive Learning

The main idea of cognitive learning is to consciously develop strategies that support

the acquisition of knowledge. Important cognitive performances are, for example,

categorising and structuring knowledge, which makes it easier for us to live in our

environment. In accordance with the interaction of the two hemispheres of the cortex

(see Section 2.2) the learning process is supported by using pictures, music or by

exercises where the learner can make his/her own experience. Bruner argues that it is

also important that learners are equipped with the necessary skills for being able to

learn on their own. It is of great relevance that students learn how to learn and how

to solve problems and continue doing this throughout their whole lives (Edelmann

1996: 202ff). Cognitivist theory sees the learner as a very active participant in the

learning process (http://www.cai.pcc.edu/tlc/assess/learn-th.htm).

How NLP can help learners to become aware of their cognitive learning strategies

will be the focus of Chapter 6, where the author describes several examples.

2.4.5 Constructivism

The theory of constructivism asserts that human beings construct their own

understanding of the world they live in by reflection on their experiences

(http://www.funderstanding.com/Learning_theory_how1.htm). Like in cognitive

theory the human mind is central to the creation of knowledge, but constructivists

distinguish themselves from traditional cognitive theorists through their belief that

the mind filters input from the world to produce its own unique reality

(http://www.cai.pcc.edu/tlc/assess/learn-th.htm). Learning is a search for meaning,

and meaning requires understanding wholes as well as parts. Parts, again, must be

understood in the context of wholes. Consequently, learning cannot focus on isolated

facts, but has to put its focus on concepts. Within these premises, it is important for

teachers and trainers to understand the mental models students build about their

understanding of the world in their search for meaning

(http://www.funderstanding.com/learning_theory_how1.htm). This theory is highly

connected to NLP in its meta-programme of chunking-up and chunking-down (see

Glossary of Terms in the Appendix) and shows a parallel to NLP's principle of “the

map is not the territory“ (see Section 4.2.2).


21

2.4.6 Multiple Intelligences

The theory of multiple intelligence was developed by the psychologist Howard

Gardner. He suggests that people perceive and understand the world in at least seven

ways, including linguistic, logical-mathematical, spatial, bodily-kinaesthetic,

musical, interpersonal, and intrapersonal. Each of these ways is defined as an

“intelligence“ by Gardner, a set of skills allowing learners to solve problems they

face (http://www.funderstanding.com/learning_theory_how7.htm and Baxter-

Magolda 2000). A hint of these intelligences was already given in Section 2.3 “Other

Factors of Influence on Learning“, where the author referred to the different

representational systems of individuals.

Traditional schooling heavily favours linguistic and logical-mathematical

intelligences, i.e. left-brain thinking. Gardner, however, suggests a more balanced

curriculum that includes arts, self-awareness, role playing, musical performance,

visualisation, and story telling. For educators and trainers, this means that they must

recognise and respond to the fact that “intelligence“ is not one dimensional, but that

people vary in the ways in which they take in and interpret information (Baxter-

Magolda 2000).

The preceding sections of this thesis have dealt with many aspects of how learning

can take place. It is, however, important to keep in mind that learning and teaching

are not identical. The following section intends to clarify this difference.

2.5 How Learning and Teaching Differ

“Learners are not empty vessels waiting to be filled, but rather active organisms seeking meaning.“ (Driscoll as cited in http://www.cai.pcc. edu/tlc/assess/learn-th.htm)

Learning is something very personal. It cannot be forced upon us

(http://www.managementalchemy.com). A teacher can hold a lecture or do a

presentation in front of the class and the students may not learn anything at all

because of, for example, disinterest or because his/her learning style and reception


22

(visual, auditory, kinaesthetic) is not addressed (see also Chapter 4). Therefore,

teaching is not automatically identical with learning. From the following chart it can

be seen that instruction and learning paradigms differ in mission and purposes, in

structure, in theory and in the nature of roles.

The Instruction Paradigm The Learning Paradigm

Mission and Purposes

Provide/Deliver Instruction Produce learning

Transfer knowledge from faculty to student

Elicit student discovery and construction of knowledge

Offer courses and programs Create powerful learning environments

Improve quality of instruction Improve quality of learning

Teaching / Learning Structures

Atomistic; parts prior to whole Holistic; whole prior to parts

Time held constant, learning varies Learning held constant, time varies

50-minute lecture, 3-unit course Learning environments

Classes start/end at the same time Environment ready when student is

One teacher, one classroom Whatever learning experience works

Covering material Specified learning results

Degree equals accumulated credit hours Degree equals demonstrated knowledge and skills

Learning Theory

Knowledge comes in “chunks“ and “bits“ delivered by instructors

Knowledge is constructed, created and “gotten“

Learning is teacher centred and controlled

Learning is student centred and controlled

“Live“ teacher, “live“ students required “Active“ learner required, but not “live“ teacher

Talent and ability are rare Talent and ability are abundant

Nature of Roles

Faculty are primarily lecturers Faculty are primarily designers of learning methods and environments

Faculty and students act independently and in isolation

Faculty and students work in teams with each other and other staff

Teachers classify and sort students Teachers develop every student's competencies and talents

Any expert can teach Empowering learning is challenging and complex.

Figure 6: Comparing Education Paradigms (excerpt from: Barr and Tagg 2000)


23

This chart evokes many differences between teaching and learning and shows that

classical teaching has a completely different starting point and approach than the

learning paradigms. Current instructional systems mainly aim at supporting teachers

in the task of delivering instruction (McKey 1997). In the learning paradigms,

however, the student and his/her learning process are in the centre of interest.

Teaching can no longer be a “one-man-show“, it is necessary to engage students

actively and take them out of their passive role. For this change it is also a

prerequisite for teachers and trainers to develop an attitude of acceptance and

understanding of students' views, desires, interests and of the relationship which

develops as the result of this acceptance. Interpersonal skills and relationships

become important factors in the learning environment (Seeler 1994). Collaboration,

activity and involvement characterise these instructional approaches. The traditional

boundaries between roles, responsibilities and activities of teachers and learners are

blurred, if not eliminated entirely (Baxter Magolda 2000). In how far the path “from

teaching to learning“ has already been progressed can be read in the following

chapter.


24

3 Educational Training in Change

Several of today's training situations are fairly unsatisfactory. Many courses at

university are only attended because they are a must in the course of study, and many

employees are sent to seminars which their superiors select for them without any

respect for their personal learning needs. The outcome of such training situations is

not only that trainees show little joy of learning, but also that these courses are

designed in a very global manner and make many participants leave the course

without having gained anything. The subsequent sections draw a picture of the status

quo and describe new trends that educational training pursues which take learner-

needs much more into consideration.

3.1 The Status Quo

The status quo of today's training situations shows many problems and can be

described as a status that rarely meets the requirements of the fast moving business

world.

From the author's own experience, the lecture has been and still is the dominant

teaching technique at school, at university and also at the majority of in-house

seminars in companies. The trainer presents new information in front of the class, the

trainees are expected to listen and grasp the content. The lessons are characterised by

a fixed curriculum; one topic after the other from “Lesson 1“ to “Lesson X“ in the

textbook is pushed through with little variation, always following the same scheme.

This may be reading a text, vocabulary, grammar and exercises in language classes,

or explaining the basics and maybe going through an example in courses which

focus on content learning. In summary, the trainer/teacher has his/her fixed

programme to present, the trainer/teacher is the centre of the course, and the

individual learner is not cared about at all (Arico, personal interview, January 26,

2000).


25

In the traditional training situation the teacher is the “provider“ and the trainee the

“recipient“ of knowledge (Brewster 1995: 15). It is hardly surprising that in such a

training and learning culture students do not learn very much. As already explained

in Section 2.5 , teaching does not automatically imply that students learn anything.

Consequently, a number of students show disinterest and passiveness, and many

teachers react by spoon-feeding them and forcing them into a rigid

educational/training system, instead of giving them attention and striving for a

mutual co-operation to achieve a common aim.

In today's fast moving world one can never stop learning, but many students and also

adults have problems to cope with this situation. A large number of students have

been traumatised by their inability to succeed in school (Blackerby 1999); the fear of

failing or spoiling one's chances for the future is always present (Decker 1995: 18).

There are several reasons for this. Firstly, more and more content is being put into

the curriculum of schools. Today's students have to learn things that ten or twenty

years ago were not taught at all. Secondly, our society is in the process of an

information explosion and thirdly, our information dissemination systems such as

computers, the Internet and satellite communication are getting faster and faster

(Blackerby 1999). With many difficulties learners fight their way through more and

more information (Decker 1995: 18). Also many adults who grew up in a much

slower paced world find it difficult to keep up with the rapid changes. They have to

change jobs and careers, learn new terminology, technology and procedures and do

not have the adequate learning strategies. They begin to feel overwhelmed; the

outcome is often frustration and anger (Blackerby 1999).

To sum up, today's educational system reacts too slowly to changes (O'Connor 1996:

21), although change and accepting the change are vital criteria for surviving in the

business world. The system has prepared students to memorise large quantities of

data, but has discouraged combining and further processing (Brewster 1995: 8). It is,

however, no longer enough to teach knowledge, which probably will already be

outdated when students leave school or university. It is far more important to equip

students and trainees with key qualifications, such as how to learn, how to rediscover

the joy of learning and how to find their own way through business life without

being spoon-fed, but rather as self-directed learners. It is high time for a change.


26

3.2 New Trends in Educational Training

“Man muß ins Gelingen verliebt sein, nicht ins Scheitern.“ (E. Bloch as cited in Decker 1995: 19)

It is of importance for every learner to see the chances of the ever faster occurring

development in many fields of research like information technology, for example.

Learning perspectives and a positive attitude towards change support future life and

work organisation and, psychologically, can be regarded as a factor for learning

success. There is a trend away from teaching only knowledge. Robert Dilts' learning

pyramid explains the new forms of learning (as cited in Decker 1995: 18ff), which

are highly connected to NLP (see Section 4.5.3):

Figure 7: Pedagogical Learning and Teaching Levels (Decker 1995: 20)

Each learning process follows seven stages. Just like a child, adults will still learn

through trial and error when a defined aim does not exist. Knowledge and

information can still be seen as the raw-material for learning, but in future the higher

levels of the pyramid will become more important. To be able to cope with the

ongoing change and to organise work it is necessary to develop new behaviours and

strategies. Key-qualifications such as the awareness of how to learn, thinking

laterally and combining, creativity, concentration and relaxation have to be acquired

�

Environment

Ecology

�Trial and Error

� Knowledge

1.Level Natural Learning

� Behaviour

� Skills, Strategies

2.Level Traditional Training

� Beliefs

� Identities

3.Level Mental Training


27

(Decker 1995: 20). For these key-qualifications other learning and training methods

are needed than for the traditional processing of knowledge.

In the past few years learning systems have started to show innovation. More

intellectual responsibility and intentionality are invested in learners, and learners are

engaged in more meaningful mental processing (Jonassen 1992: 1ff). The trend is

going in the direction of developing self-directed learners who show intrinsic

motivation to seek and explore explanations to solve problems (Mayes 1992: 7ff).

The author has experienced several courses which shift the responsibility for one's

learning success from the teacher to the learner. Students were not spoon-fed to a

certain grade or to pass the course, but they had to identify for themselves what are

their learning needs, which expectations they set and how to plan and carry out

learning. An example for such a course is Dr. Brewster's “Project Seminar 2“ for

English language learning, which the author attended in the summer semester of

1998 as a member of the Filcom project group.

Filcom is a computer programme to make optimal use of and to acquire expert

knowledge. The project took place in co-operation with a group of linguistics

students at the University of Salzburg, and it was the task to implement a concept

(topic free of choice) into the programme and to evaluate its advantages and

disadvantages in order to improve the features of the programme and, as a

consequence, provide a better use of knowledge in companies that intend to buy the

software. It was completely left up to the teams to organise their project and make it

work. This course was an experience of intra- and inter-group communication,

developing team working abilities and gaining a new access to language learning via

the content of the seminar. It was also an experience of learning computer

terminology and working with the media of e-mail and CBT (Computer Based

Training). Unfortunately, the Filcom team Linz had to face a weak commitment to

the project by the Salzburg colleagues and tried to solve this problem by organising a

personal meeting. It was expected that, when the group members got to know each

other personally and could establish rapport (an NLP-technique that will be

explained in Section 4.3.3), the common aim of a successful project would be


28

reinforced. In fact, the feeling of knowing which person is behind a simple e-mail

address finally contributed to better communication and the success of the project.

Another aspect of this project needs to be taken into consideration. It was also an

opportunity for the teachers, Dr. Brewster in Linz and Prof. Wieden in Salzburg, to

learn from the two groups. At the end of the course an evaluation-meeting in

Salzburg took place, where the strengths and weaknesses of the groups were

analysed. It was thought about encouraging the successive groups to organise a

personal meeting also, as it had proven to be a positive experience for the Filcom

Team in the summer semester of 1998.

This example clearly shows that a change in roles is taking place. The teacher is no

longer the only provider for knowledge and learning, but it is possible to learn from

each other, which is an important step to life-long learning. Even more, students and

trainees deliver valuable input, for example, in a virtual classroom or when looking

for useful web-sites for language learning or skills learning, and document this

knowledge in a network. These types of learners, however, need a different leader

than the traditional teacher. There is a shift from mediating knowledge to a personal

and social support of the learners. The teacher becomes rather a consultant, a coach

and a creator of methodology offering support to self-help, moderating the learning

process, initiating, accelerating and creating the outside conditions for learning

(Decker 1995: 25).

Certainly, this change goes along with an individualisation process. It is the learner's

task to find out about his/her learning preferences including time and location. Open

learning systems, for example distance learning and new technologies such as

Computer-Based-Training (CBT) and e-mail, make it possible for the learner to

design his/her individual learning more efficiently. For the author, who has been

involved in business life for more than five years now, this development offers a

useful opportunity of combining job and studies without generating too much stress.

As already mentioned in Section 2.3, new learning strategies focus on a relaxed and

stress-free status for optimal learning success. It is important to provide for an

enjoyable situation, as for self-directed learning high motivation and self-discipline

are needed. There is no longer a teacher telling one when and where to do what, the


29

learner is in the centre of action and has to find for himself/herself a comfortable

learning situation where it is possible to rediscover the joy of learning.

Companies have also started to realise that employees do not show very much

learning success if they are forced to attend seminars somebody else considers to be

important (see also Chapter 2.3.2). Often, employees are not aware of the aims of the

seminar, which may result in so-called “seminar-tourism“, sending employees to

various courses involving high costs for the enterprise, but showing hardly any

quality improvement (Maisberger 1993: 191ff). However, learning faster than one's

competitors is one of the vital skills of a company if it is to survive in the business

world (O'Connor 1996: 17). Therefore, systematic and thoughtful employee-training

has become a valuable good that may also help to increase employees' loyalty to the

firm (Maisberger 1993: 193). Consequently, in-house training is also becoming more

self-directed. Self-study materials, the combination of seminars with practical

projects and the integration of training and consultation enhance the status of

employees and make them feel more responsible for their own quality skills-learning

contributing to the success of a learning organisation (Kailer 1994: 242ff).

The practical examples described in Part II of this thesis pick up some learning

situations where new techniques such as NLP support the learning process. It will be

shown how NLP can help in language learning, in selling and in content learning.

Today's business world requires many skills. The ongoing globalisation demands

fluency in foreign languages. Languages, again, are important in the international

sales business. Selling, in turn, requires effective communication skills.

Communication skills and coping with the load of new knowledge in today's

information explosion play a significant part in one's personal development. As one

can see, these skills are all linked with each other. Together they form a set of key-

qualifications that make students, trainees and employees fit for today's continuous

change.

Before showing the application of NLP in these case-studies, however, it is

necessary to introduce several basic ideas about Neuro-Linguistic -Programming.


30

4 Neuro-Linguistic-Programming (NLP)

This chapter aims at giving a concise overview of what NLP is, what principles it is

based on and which methods and models it applies.

4.1 Definition and Development

Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) can be defined as the study of the structure of

subjective experience and is based on the belief that all behaviour has structure

(http://www.purenlp.com/whatsnlp.htm).

NLP's beginning was in the early 1970's in Santa Cruz, California, when John

Grinder, an Assistant Professor of Linguistics and Richard Bandler, a psychology

student at that time, studied three very successful therapists: Fritz Perls, the founder

of the school of “Gestalt“ therapy; Virginia Satir, a successful family therapist; and

Milton Erickson, a famous hypnotherapist (Rosenberg 2000: 1). Grinder and Bandler

were interested in the behaviour of these experts. They wanted to find out what

excellent communicators automatically did right, what their thinking process looked

like, what were their core values, how they addressed people, how they moved etc.

(Darpe 1996). A presupposition of their research was that all human-beings possess

the same neurology, and therefore the behaviour and processes of effective

communicators can be modelled, learned, taught and changed (Mayer Wamos 1994:

43). Consequently, it is possible to learn from experts and geniuses (compare to

Bandura's Observational Learning in Chapter 2.4.3) and to develop one’s own

excellence. The aim is to generate high-quality skills oneself (Darpe, 1996), and in

this sense the concept of NLP is a valuable tool for becoming a self-directed learner.

The name Neuro-Linguistic -Programming can be explained as follows (Rosenberg

2000: 1 and http://www.excelquest.com/whatisnlp.htm):


31

Neuro is originated from the fundamental idea that all behaviour comes

from neurological processes through which we experience and

process information using our senses (visual, auditory,

kinaesthetic, olfactory, gustatory)

Linguistic indicates that we use language, verbal and non-verbal, to express

our feelings and thoughts.

Programming refers to our ability to organise our ideas and actions to achieve

specific goals and results.

NLP's application began in therapy to treat phobias in an efficient manner. Later, its

use was discovered for the sales business, and the last step was to apply NLP in

educational training (Rosenberg, seminar, February 4, 2000). Today various areas

make use of NLP (Ötsch 1996):

• therapy for efficient treatment

• training and teaching to motivate trainers / teachers and learners

• sports to achieve excellent performance

• business to coach managers

• politics to make better decisions

• medicine to cure psychological illnesses

• partnerships to show better understanding for the persons one loves

• self-application to improve the quality of life.

It is not possible to go into all applications of NLP in this thesis. Part II presents a

selection of practical examples that concentrate on a learner-centred approach to

enable students and employees to be prepared for important qualifications in

business life and to become better artists of their lives with NLP as a new form of

learning and communication (Decker 1995: 62).

4.2 Philosophy and Principles of NLP

NLP is based on several assumptions and beliefs that are derived from humanistic

psychology and pedagogy and have been systematised and developed further by


32

John Grinder and Richard Bandler and other scientists (Decker 1995: 62). In the

following section the most important principles will be explained, as they are the

basis for a correct and adequate application of NLP.

4.2.1 Each human-being is unique

Each human-being takes part in the universe and realises it, but interprets the

environment in a different way (Decker 1995: 62). In NLP the ways we take in, store

and code information in our minds – seeing, hearing, feeling, tasting and smelling –

are known as representational systems (Rosenberg 2000: 9). However, it would be

too much to process all the impressions and signals we perceive. Therefore, our

senses are designed as “filters”, and each human-being builds up a different model of

the world, a different map, depending on the experience one has made, on thinking

perspectives and beliefs. In this way, it is possible to assimilate and organise the

experiences we have made (Decker 1995: 62f).

4.2.2 The map is not the territory

We create our own map from our sensory experiences, and we then operate as if our

map were reality (http:www.noceans.demon.co.uk/nlpresup.htm). The map is very

important for one’s personal orientation in the world, but it only shows a limited

picture; the real world is always different. NLP enriches the possibilities to get a

deeper insight into the maps of other persons (Decker 1995: 63).

4.2.3 Our behaviour is the result of our state of being

In our every day life we experience all different kinds of neuro-physiological states:

on the one hand, states that motivate and inspire us, such as trust, love, joy and

enthusiasm, but, on the other hand, also states that paralyse like depressions, fear and

sadness. The latter take all our energy (Decker 1995: 63) and block our behaviour

and learning process. NLP believes that individuals have all the inner resources

necessary to make any behavioural or state-change desired (Rosenberg 2000: 1), but

the access to these resources may sometimes be blocked (Bierbaum 1997: 29).

Consequently, individuals should be able to control their inner states, as only human

beings who have learned to successfully manage and use their states are able to

design their lives. The key to this lies in the skill to control one's brain activities


33

(Decker 1995: 64f). How we imagine ourselves in a certain situation and the way we

do that determine the state we are in and, finally, our real behaviour.

4.2.4 What is possible for one person is possible for anyone

This principle is highly connected to a person's perception. We have learned the

“map of our world“ throughout our lives, but it is possible to change it. An optimist

will find a glass half full, whereas a pessimist considers it to be half empty. The

pessimist is limited in his/her perception and the access to his/her internal resources

to make him/her happy is blocked. NLP wants to enlarge a person's perception

possibilities and create more alternatives for one's behaviour. Excellent performance

results from multiple choices (Decker 1995: 65). The more possibilities we have, the

greater are the chances of success (Rosenberg 2000: 1). However, this kind of

learning does not consist of simply copying outer behaviour, but requires going

through internal and external processes and modelling them (see also Section 4.3.1

and Section 4.1 “Definition and Development”).

4.2.5 The meaning of your communication is the response you get

(Bierbaum 1997: 27).

One of NLP's principles is that you are unable not to communicate. As soon as two

persons are together they interact, not only with words, but also with tonality and

body-postures, gestures, eye-contact and expressions. Studies have shown that 55 per

cent of the impact of a presentation in front of an audience are determined by our

body-language and only seven per cent by the contents (Rosenberg 2000: 3).

Figure 8: Impact on the Listener (Rosenberg 2000: 3)

Tonality38%

Content = Words

7%

Body Language

55%


34

Communication is a loop. What we do influences our partners, what they do has

influence on us (Rosenberg 2000: 3). Therefore, not what you intend to say, but how

a partner reacts to a certain statement is important. The statement evokes an inner

experience and the partner reacts upon this experience, not necessarily upon the

words said before (Bierbaum 1997: 27). Words often block learning and

communication, which often leads to misunderstandings, as the same expression

may mean something totally different to another person (Decker 1995: 66).

According to the NLP philosophy, however, there are no failures in communication,

there is only feedback (Bierbaum 1997: 29). If a message does not reach your

partner, this can be told from his/her reaction, and it is best to try another “channel“

to meet him/her in his/her own model of the world.

4.3 Methods and Techniques of NLP

4.3.1 Modelling

As the Chapters 4.1. and 4.2.4 have already indicated, NLP assumes that excellence

can be learned and trained. Bandler and Grinder studied experts to get information

how these people performed so excellently. This process is known as modelling in

NLP. Modelling tries to split a process into very small parts and describe these parts

to make it possible for others to use the same structure to improve their performance.

Modelling is a natural process. Children, for example, intuitively model their parents

and other persons. In this way, they unconsciously learn complex behaviours,

attitudes and views (Ötsch 2000: Modellieren, Modell-Bildung, Modellier-Prozeß).

In training situations the technique of modelling can be used in a number of ways,

which will be shown in the case study situations.


35

4.3.2 The Art of Perceiving People - VAK (Visual - Auditory - Kinaesthetic)

Individuals process all information through their five senses (Rosenberg 2000: 1).

For educational training it is, therefore, essential to find out about the preferred

representational system of trainees - visual, auditory or kinaesthetic, because then the

trainer can design the course according to the preferred learning styles of the

individuals. Auditory and kinaesthetically oriented learners will not feel addressed if

the trainer only teaches visually (see also Section 2.3 of this thesis). Everybody has

one primary representational modality, and into this modality one goes back when

feeling under pressure. For example, a car-driver may find it comfortable listening to

the radio, but when he/she drives in an unknown town and looks for a certain place

to go, he/she may find the radio annoying and has to turn it off to concentrate. This is

an indication that he/she is most probably not an auditory type (Rosenberg, seminar,

February 4, 2000).

There are various exercises to find out about the preferred representational “channel“

of trainees in the course, which will be explained in the practical examples in Part II

to show their direct application in the very context of language learning, selling and

negotiating and content learning. However, there is one method to get more

information about the representational system of a partner in a conversation that can

be applied in any situation: eye-movements. According to NLP, automatic,

unconscious eye-movements, or “eye accessing cues“, often accompany particular

thought processes (Dilts 1998). With eye accessing cues it is possible to find out, if a

person thinks in pictures, sounds or feelings, as we move our eyes systematically in

certain directions (Rosenberg 2000: 9). The following figure shows the patterns that

appear to be constant for right handed people throughout the human race; many left

handed people, however, tend to be reversed from left to right (Dilts 1998).


36

From Beholder's Perspective!

Subject's Right Subject's Left

Figure 9: NLP Eye Movement Patterns (O'Connor 1996: 48)

From this picture it can be seen that people thinking in pictures regularly move their

eyes upwards, persons thinking in sounds move their eyes sidewards and human

beings thinking kinaesthetically, i.e. in feelings, downwards. It has to be noted that

the above shown figure demonstrates a difference between “remembered“ and

“constructed“. The movement of the remembrance goes into the left direction, the

construction into the right one. For example, a person can remember the colour of

his/her car (eyes up and left) and can imagine, i.e. construct, what it would be like

looking down on a city skyline from a cloud (eyes up and right) (Dilts 1998). The

same can be applied for auditory and kinaesthetic thinking.

Visual constructed Visual remembered

Auditory constructed Auditory remembered

Kinaesthetic Auditory digital


37

It has to be stressed that NLP is not another technique to press people into various

categories and stereotypes, human beings are richer and more valuable than the

generalisations made about them. NLP offers a wide range of models, consequently

it is best to select the most appropriate of these, depending on what human beings are

doing at the time, and not trying to adapt people to the stereotypes (Rosenberg 2000:

9).

4.3.3 Rapport

In NLP “Rapport“ is a generic term for all measures taken to establish a bias for

good communication (Bachmann 1999: 83). It is the key to getting into the loop of

communication, as communication seems to flow when two people are in good

rapport. Their body language as well as their words seem to match and reflect each

other. In order to establish rapport, one joins the other person's “dance“ by matching

his/her body language, but with sensitivity and respect. In this way it is possible to -

speaking in pictures - build a bridge over to the other person and cross over to his/her

model of the world. There are various possibilities to create rapport. One can match

• breathing

• body language and gestures

• posture

• tonality

• loudness of speech

• tempo of speech

• representational systems

• dialect and slang

• cultural customs

• distance between the speakers

• eye contact

The English play on words “When people are like each other, they like each other“

reflects exactly what is meant with rapport in NLP terminology (Rosenberg 2000: 4).

In Chapter 6 it will be shown which techniques are best to establish good rapport in

the case-study situations.


38

4.3.4 Pacing and Leading

Rapport allows building a bridge to another person; pacing and leading are the next

steps and very much related to rapport. When the bridge is finished, we can

begin to change our behaviour and the other person will probably

follow us. Pacing is the process of building the bridge through

rapport and respect; leading is the changing of behaviour in order to

make it easier for the other person to follow. Leading can only take place when

rapport has already been established because it is not possible to lead somebody over

a bridge which has not been finished. Therefore, it is important to show respect for

what the other person has to say, even if we do not agree. A principle of NLP is that

all behaviour has positive intention, and this has to be assumed also for the partner in

a conversation. In order to pace and lead successfully, it is essential to pay attention

to the other person and stay flexible enough oneself to react to what is heard and

seen (Rosenberg 2000: 7). According to these techniques, the best trainers are those

who can enter the world of the individual learner, build up a good relationship and in

this way make the material to be learned easier.

4.3.5 Reframing

Reframing can be defined as the art of giving a new meaning to experience and

thoughts (Decker 1995: 71). Reframing offers the possibility of looking at problems

and situations from many different perspectives, which may help to work through

them more easily (Rosenberg 2000: 38).

NLP terminology divides the Reframing technique into “context reframing“ and

“content reframing“.

Context reframing tries to find a new place or time for a special behaviour where it is

useful and positive. For example, jokes and giving funny answers is an important

skill for every comedian. This behaviour, however, may be inappropriate in serious

discussions. Therefore, it is necessary to give this behaviour the correct context:

when and where is it useful?

Content reframing tries to change the meaning of an experience through a new

interpretation; it looks for the positive value of a certain behaviour (Rosenberg 2000:

38). A stressed manager, for example, may feel annoyed when his/her telephone


39

rings a hundred times a day. A sensitive trainer may change this annoying content

for the manager into a positive one by suggestion he/she thinks to himself/herself,

“That's good, everybody needs you, you are the expert, you are important.“ Suddenly

the ringing of the telephone has a different meaning for the manager, he/she has the

feeling of being important and needed (Rosenberg, seminar, February 5, 2000).

The idea of creating a new frame for a situation or a behaviour is not new (see also

critical evaluation in Chapter 10), but already known from fairy tales and fables. The

trick is that fixed situations and behaviours lose their original meaning, and

consequently the way to a new orientation and interpretation is freed (Bachmann

1999: 99).

4.3.6 The Meta Model of Language

As already indicated in Chapter 4.2.1 NLP assumes that all models of the world

human beings build up are “filtered“ models. They are not a direct and identical

picture of the world, but a reconstruction of sensory experiences (Ötsch 2000:

Wahrnehmungs-Filter). Consequently, words and language never have only one

meaning. What an expression means depends on the individual experience made

with the very phrase, on the learned cultural meaning of the word and on the context

in which the word is used. The NLP Meta Model of Language aims at combining the

language a person uses with the experiences made and represented through the

language (Bachmann 1999: 160). Specific techniques of asking questions make it

possible to analyse unclear language patterns and to gain precise information quickly

(Ötsch 2000: Meta Modell der Sprache). The Meta Model of Language can,

therefore, also be described as the “art of asking the right questions“.

Bandler and Grinder refer to three processes how human beings build models:

generalisations, deletions and distortions. On the one hand, these models enable

human beings to survive, to understand and to experience the world, but, on the other

hand, they limit the possibilities of individuals (Bachmann 1999: 162). The

following paragraphs intend to describe these processes in depth, as a clear


40

communication without misunderstandings is important in many situations,

particularly in the case of selling (see Chapter 8).

Generalisations occur when one example is taken as the representative of a number

of different possibilities (Rosenberg 2000: 43). Often, they are expressed with

universal quantifiers such as “all“, “every“, “always“, “never“, “nobody“, etc. When

a person says, “I trust in nobody.“, the NLP Meta Model suggests several possible

reactions. Firstly, it is possible to exaggerate by using additional universal

quantifiers, e.g. “Is there really nobody in the whole world you trust?“ Secondly, it is

possible to ask for the original experience to gain additional information, e.g. “Have

you been disappointed by anybody?“. Thirdly, it is possible to ask for a counter-

example, e.g. “Do you know somebody you could trust?“ (Ötsch 2000:

Verallgemeinerung, Generalisierung). In this way, the speaker is encouraged to look

for exceptions from his/her generalisations (Bachmann 1999: 168).

Another form of generalisations are the model operators of necessity or possibility.

These indicate rules of conduct or needs which individuals have and are

characterised by words such as “cannot“, “must not“, “should“, etc. (Rosenberg

2000: 43). These operators define what is necessary or possible in the speaker's

model of the world and, therefore, are limiting to the speaker. Questions like “What

stops you?“ or “What would happen if you did?“ in response to the statement “I

cannot...“ allows the speaker to at least acknowledge the possibility of choice and to

disclose subjective limitations (Bachmann 1999: 168).

Deletion describes a process when a human being deletes parts of the meaning of

his/her original experience (Ötsch 2000: Meta-Modell der Sprache). Therefore, it is

essential for a good communications bias to recognise deletions and to bring back

the deleted information (Bachmann 1999: 166). The following forms of deletions are

possible and can be clarified by the Meta Model:

• Nominalisation occurs when a verb which describes an on-going process is

turned into a noun. The on-going action becomes a static noun, and often

nominalisations do not refer to sensory experience and eliminate most of the

specific information in a sentence. The sentence “Teaching and discipline,

applied with respect and firmness are essentials in the process of education“

is full of nouns, but does not give much information. The meaning can be


41

clarified by asking “Who is teaching? Who is being taught? What is taught?“

(Rosenberg 2000: 42).

• Unspecified verbs also leave out information. “Learn this for tomorrow.“ is

an example. It could be important to know how specifically the content

should be studied. The Meta Model helps to clarify this by asking “How

specifically ...?“ (Ibid).

• A lack of referential index may also make it difficult to understand a

statement correctly. “That can be learned easily“ leaves many open

questions: What can be learned easily? How can that be learned easily?

(Ibid).

• Simple deletions refer to sentences which leave out any type of information.

The statement “I can't stand it any more.“ leaves the listener unclear as to

what exactly is meant. A question like “What exactly can't you stand?“ may

throw more light on the intended meaning (Ibid).

• Comparative deletions leave out the comparison. Sentences using words like

“best“, “better“ or “worse“ and “worst“ need something to compare with.

“That is the best answer“ can be clarified by asking “The best among

which?“ (Rosenberg 2000: 40 and 42).

These forms of disclosing deletions make it possible to gather more information

about the intended meaning of a statement and allow a precise and complete

description of the presented content (Bachmann 1999: 165).

Distortions, the third process of building language models, express self-made

limitations, i.e. a person's model of the world is misrepresented (Bachmann 1999:

169). Three different cases can be distinguished:

• Cause - Effect:

The cause and effect-concept is built upon the subjective belief that

somebody else is responsible for one's feelings and emotional state. From

the view of the acting person there is no other possibility than reacting the

way he/she does, and, therefore, the person reduces the various alternatives

to one single behaviour, which usually is not favourable (Bachmann

1999:169). Consequently, it is very limiting to think that someone else is

responsible e.g. for one's anger. The common statement “You get on my


42

nerves“ can be challenged by asking “What specifically do I do that gets on

your nerves?“ The speaker may then discover that the other person is not

really the cause for the effect, i.e. the anger (Rosenberg 2000: 43).

• Mind Reading

When persons mind-read they presume to know, without concrete evidence,

what another person is thinking or feeling (Ibid). Apparently, this person

acts upon his/her own feelings and interpretations and projects these to the

other individual. The assumption “Everybody thinks I am too slow“ can be

made conscious by the question “How do you know what everybody

thinks?“ (Bachmann 1999: 170).

• Lost Performative

Lost performatives are generalised statements about the world that come

from the speaker's own model of the world and express value judgements

and opinions, e.g. “This is a stupid thing to do“. They are very closely tied

to the speaker's belief system. Therefore it is necessary to make the speaker

aware of this by getting him/her to add, “In my opinion...“ or “I think...“

(Rosenberg 2000: 43).

To sum up, the NLP Meta Model of Language is designed to develop the ability to

listen and to find out the complete meaning of a communication (Bachmann 1999:

165). The listener learns to know when he/she has got the relevant information and

when not and is able to ask for it any time. The Meta Model prevents individuals

from projecting their model of the world on others, and gives other people room for

their personal attitudes and models. With the Meta Model human beings train

themselves not to react too hastily to words, but to ask precisely and to build up good

rapport (Ötsch 2000: Meta-Modell der Sprache).

4.3.7 The Milton-Model

The Milton-Model consists of two parts: the inverse language-patterns of the Meta

Model and additional elements of hypnotic language. Whereas the Meta Model aims

at making statements more precise and specific to enlarge consciously the awareness

of alternatives, the Milton-Model describes a situation only vaguely to start a search-

process in the individual. The listener tries to connect what he/she has heard with


43

own experience, but as the other person has not directly addressed the experience, no

or less averse reactions are likely (Ötsch 2000: Milton-Modell).

4.3.8 Metaphors

Metaphors and stories are widely used in the domain of NLP. A metaphor can be

seen as any analogy, comparison, story, fairy-tale, myth or joke which is directly or

indirectly connected to the presented content (O’Connor 1996: 246). The intention

when making use of metaphors is to transfer knowledge from one context into

another (Ötsch 2000: Metapher) and consequently offer a new access to the content

which might make it easier for the learner to follow. Metaphors present an elegant

method to make a complex content clearer, to catch the attention of an audience, to

give meaningful feedback or to promote creative thinking (Ibid). Most people like

being told stories. The story-teller, however, has to bear in mind that the strength of a

metaphor is measured by the listener and not by the himself. Metaphors cannot be

classified in right or wrong, a good metaphor has many levels of meaning, and each

individual may consider different aspects as being important to himself/herself

(O’Connor 1996: 247).

4.3.9 Anchoring

Emotional states have a powerful influence on our thinking processes and behaviour.

It would therefore be useful to make resourceful states constantly available and

stabilise them in the here and now as they are the key to peak performance

(Rosenberg 2000: 35). In NLP, anchoring can be described as a consciously induced

stimulus-response-conditioning (difference to Pavlov’s Stimulus Response Learning

see Section 4.4 and Bachmann 1999: 93). Everybody has a personal history that is

rich in different emotional states. To re-experience these states, a trigger is needed to

bring back the original experience. A stimulus which is linked to and triggers a

physiological state is called “anchor” in NLP (Rosenberg 2000: 35). For

example, a remembered picture may become an anchor for a particular

internal feeling, a voice tone may become an anchor for a state of

excitement or confidence (Dilts 1999: Anchoring). Basically, anchors can be set in


44

any modality - visual, auditory, kinaesthetically, olfactory or gustatory (Bachmann

1999: 94). How anchoring can be used in training situations to make resourceful

states of trainer and trainees become vivid will be shown in Part II of this thesis.

It is significant that the metaphor of an “anchor” is used in NLP terminology. The

anchor of a ship is attached by the crew to some stable point in order to hold the ship

in a certain area and prevent it from floating away. Anchors in NLP serve as

reference points which help human beings to find a particular location on the

experiental “sea” and to hold the attention there and keep it from drifting (Dilts

1999: Anchoring).

4.3.10 Win-Win

A Win-win situation in NLP terminology can be described as a decision or a process

where both parties are winners, and not one winner and one

loser (O’Connor 1996: 350). A positive communication, as

NLP favours, does not accept a losing situation, but rather

one where everyone should benefit. This is extremely important in

training situations where the aims of trainer and trainee should not be contrary, and

in selling situations, where the seller as well as the buyer should have the feeling of

making a good bargain.

In the previous paragraphs a great deal of theory about NLP has been introduced.

The next chapter tries to combine elements of NLP-theory with the learning theories

explained in Section 2.4.


45

4.4 Combining NLP-Elements with Learning Theories

Section 2.4 of this thesis has introduced several learning theories relevant for NLP.

The following section intends to establish a connection of NLP and these theories,

i.e. to find out where the parallels and perhaps some differences are.

The first theories referred to in Chapter 2.4 are the behaviouristic theories of

Pavlov's Stimulus Response Learning and Thorndike and Skinner's Operant

Conditioning. As already mentioned in Section 4.3.9, NLP's technique of anchoring

is a consciously induced stimulus-response-conditioning. It is a process that on the

surface is similar to the conditioning technique Pavlov used to create a link between

the hearing of a bell and salivation in dogs (Dilts 1999). According to Bandler and

Grinder, however, anchoring differs from the classical behaviouristic conditioning in

three points:

1. Also initial experience can function as an anchor (principle of „one trial

learning”).

2. In comparison to Skinner, reinforcement is not considered as a necessary

prerequisite for the establishment of anchors (Bachmann 1999: 93f).

3. In the behaviourist's stimulus-response conditioning formula, the stimulus is

always an environmental cue and the response is always a specific

behavioural action. The association is considered reflexive and not a matter

of choice. In NLP this type of associative conditioning has been expanded to

include links between other aspects of experience than only environment cues

and behavioural responses, e.g. a remembered picture or a voice tone (Dilts

1999). Consequently, inner experience and cognitive behaviour are equal to

outer reactions (Bachmann 1999: 94).

There is one more aspect of anchoring related to Pavlov's stimulus-response learning

that is worth mentioning. Pavlov's dog had to be in a certain state for the bell to

mean anything, i.e. it had to be hungry; then Pavlov could anchor the stimulus to the

response. Similarly, the state of learners are in, is important to effectively establish


46

an anchor. For instance, a good teacher knows when to send a message and when

not. If trainees have a sudden insight and the teacher turns on an overhead projector,

it is going to be received in a different way and associated differently than if the

trainees are struggling with a concept. Consequently, timing is a very important

aspect in setting effective anchors (Dilts 1999).

In addition to the comparison to behaviouristic theories, which is dealt with in

literature, the author herself has discovered several parallels of NLP-elements and

the theories of Observational Learning, Cognitivism, Constructivism and Multiple

Intelligences.

As already explained in Section 2.4.3, which deals with Bandura's Observational

Learning, learners imitate the behaviour of a certain model. NLP's belief that all

behaviour has structure and that excellence can be learned by everybody is highly

connected to this theory. Just like in the retention process described in Bandura's

theory, where the observer codes or structures the information in an easily

remembered form, modelling in NLP splits a certain behaviour into small processes

that can be explained and taught to everybody.

NLP's art of perceiving people - VAK - also addresses several learning theories.

Cognitive learning as well as constructivism and the theory of multiple intelligences

refer to the representational systems. As already mentioned in Section 2.4.6 learning

is not unidimensional. Each individual takes in and stores information in a different

way, maybe in pictures or sounds, and has a preferred representational channel

where learning can easily occur. Adressing the individual's preferred representational

system and making these modalities conscious to the individual are NLP-key

elements and can as well be found in the above-mentioned theories.

The theory of constructivism shows one more parallel to NLP. Constructivism

believes in learning as a search for meaning and requires understanding wholes as

well as parts (see Section 2.4.5). NLP's meta-programme of chunking-up and

chunking-down (see Glossary of Terms) can be seen as a parallel. Chunking-up in

NLP means to gain a general overview of a certain topic, whereas chunking-down

stands for looking for details and understanding parts of the whole.


47

Furthermore, constructivism assumes that the mind filters input from the world and

creates its own unique reality, each individual has his/her own model of the world.

This is exactly what NLP believes as well. Through sensory experiences human

beings create their “map” and believe it is reality. As already explained in Section

4.2.2 the “map is not the territory”, but it is important to understand the mental

models of others and to get deeper insight into them.

From the description above it can be seen that NLP has many elements from various

learning theories. It is, however, not only of interest to combine NLP with learning

theories, as recently many new approaches in educational training have done, such as

Mind Mapping, Superlearning and Mental Training. The next section aims at

presenting NLP as an integrative concept.

4.5 NLP as a Modern and Holistic Concept

The Sections 2.2 and 2.3. of this thesis have introduced some basic ideas about right-

and left-brain thinking and other factors of influence on learning, such as the

importance of the Alpha state. These ideas have become more and more important

for alternative learning techniques, which have been developed recently. The author

would like to briefly explain three of these new concepts - Mind Mapping,

Superlearning and Mental Training - and show their relatedness of character to NLP.

4.5.1 NLP and Mind Mapping

Mind Mapping is a technique of making notes developed by Tony Buzan. In contrast

to traditional techniques which are tied to making linear concepts, i.e. a “chain“,

Mind Mapping uses a net-structure. A proverb says that a chain is only as strong as

its weakest part, and, therefore, the danger of missing out an important part or losing

the thread in this linear structure is relatively high. The Mind Mapping net-structure

corresponds much more to the way the human brain works, as one term is in the

centre, which is directly related to branches and twigs (see Figure 10). Mind

Mapping combines words with forms and shapes, colours and pictures, and,


48

therefore, offers a very individual and personal structure to facilitate remembrance

and recognition.

The relatedness of Mind Mapping to NLP is easy to find. Mind Mapping as well as

NLP strongly relate to the theory of the hemispheres. Both methods favour the

stimulation of both hemispheres, and especially the right one, as this side is heavily

neglected in traditional schooling methods. Colours, pictures, visualisation, sketches,

anchoring and association play an important

role in Mind Mapping as well as in NLP. The

combination of words and pictures in Mind

Maps corresponds to the importance of

addressing the preferred representational

system of the individual in NLP. Furthermore,

NLP and Mind Mapping emphasise

individuality, personality and creativity, as each

Mind Map has an individual and personal

character, and NLP favours subjective

experience (Bachmann 1999: 188ff).

4.5.2 NLP and Superlearning

The concept of Suggestopaedia or Superlearning - the terms are used synonimously

today - was created by Georgi Lozanov. Two aspects can be emphasised. Firstly,

Superlearning also pursues the stimulation of both hemispheres, just like Mind

Mapping and NLP. Secondly, a relaxed state for learning is highly significant in the

concept of Superlearning. Chapter 2.3 has already stated that the Alpha state is a

condition where our brain is extremely active and creative, but our body relaxed and

not under pressure. Lozanov discovered that this favourable learning condition can

be created by an active design of the learning environment. He observed that baroque

music is a valuable tool for placing individuals in the Alpha state, as the rhythm of

the heart and the brain-waves adapt to the rhythm of the music. Furthermore,

Figure 10: Example for a Mind Map

(Bachmann 1999: 190).


49

Superlearning also has elements of addressing the various learner types, exercises for

group dynamics and activities for kinaesthetic learners like NLP. Even more,

Superlearning could be integrated in the NLP concept, as Superlearning's sequence

of “theory - relaxing - doing“ (Stanek, personal interview, 5 April, 2000) could

eliminate blocks to learning by evoking energy resources to allow for quick, efficient

and joyful learning (Bachmann 1999: 193 ff).

4.5.3 NLP and Mental Training

Mental training has become very famous because of its success in sports and space

science. Its characteristic is that the learning goal is first achieved mentally before it

becomes reality. This concept of mindfitness is highly connected to Dilts' learning

levels, which Section 3.2 of this thesis has presented. NLP as well as mental training

operate very much with a positive formulation of aims and objectives. Very much

indeed can be achieved on the beliefs-level. Often learners are blocked by their

attitude to learning. Expressions like “I cannot do that“ or “I will never learn that“

prevent individuals from performing as they are supposed to. And exactly here lies

the key. Individuals need to be aware about their aims; they have to set their own

goals and formulate them positively. NLP and mental training favour this personal

definition of goals. If a person believes in his/her mind that he/she will achieve the

goal, it will, in fact, be easier to accomplish (Decker 1995: 77ff and Bachmann 1999:

198 ff).

The preceding sections attempted to present NLP as a modern and holistic concept

among other new approaches to learning like Mind Mapping, Superlearning and

Mental Training. The following chapters of this thesis deal with the practical

application of NLP and how this application is received by trainees.


50

PART II

NEURO-LINGUISTIC-PROGRAMMING

IN PRACTICE


51

5 Methodology

Part I of this thesis has dealt with the theory about learning and NLP. The second

part presents a selection of practical applications of NLP in learning situations and

the methodology used.

5.1 Interviews

As Chapter 3 of this thesis has already explained, today's business world requires

certain key competencies. Among these, the author has selected language learning,

communication with particular emphasis on selling, and content learning to

investigate in practice. It was decided to conduct one expert interview in each case

study to get deeper insight of how NLP methods are applied in the varying

situations. The author established a set of interview-questions, which can be found in

the appendix (as the interviews were conducted in German, an English translation is

also available). The questions are divided into two parts. The first part includes

general questions about NLP in training situations; the second part was specifically

designed for the field of expertise of the very interviewee. It may be noted that the

general part also includes queries which directly relate to the title of this thesis, i.e.

the learner-centred approach, and questions about NLP-application in other than the

expert's field of activity. Concerning this point, the author intended not to violate

NLP's holistic concept by putting the key-competencies into boxes.

5.2 The Experts

To give the reader a clearer insight who the interviewed experts are and what their

relationship to NLP is like, the author would like to introduce them briefly.

The first interview concerning the language-learning case-study was conducted on

January 26 and February 2, 2000 with Ms. Karin Aricò (Mag. phil.) who is a teacher

of Italian at the Institute of Business Languages at the Johannes Kepler University in


52

Linz and applies many NLP elements in her Italian courses. Ms. Aricò has been

dealing with NLP since 1991, after her attention had been called to it by a colleague.

She decided to attend the NLP Practitioner Training, as NLP seemed to be very

useful and easy to put into practice (Aricò, personal interview, January 26, 2000).

The second interviewee was Mr. Wolfgang Stanek who is a communication trainer at

Raiffeisenlandesbank Oberösterreich reg. Genossenschaft m.b.H. and has been

working for the Upper Austrian Government since 1979. Mr. Stanek was

interviewed on April 5, 2000 as an expert for the second case-study, NLP in

communication and selling, accompanied by his wife, Mrs. Johanna Stanek (Dr.)

who is responsible for personnel development at Raiffeisenlandesbank

Oberösterreich and kindly arranged the meeting. Mr. Stanek made his first contact

with NLP in the early 1990s when he attended an introductory seminar at WIFI, the

Wirtschaftsförderungsinstitut. This seminar was not impressive to him at all. Only in

1994, when he started the NLP-Practioner- and the NLP-Master-course with Gundl

Kutschera, did he discover his fascination for NLP, especially for its holistic concept

and its individuality (Stanek, personal interview, April 5, 2000).

Finally, the third interview concerning the content-learning case-study was

conducted on May 9, 2000 with Professor Dr. Walter Ötsch, who is a professor at the

Institute of Economics at the Johannes Kepler University in Linz. Professor Ötsch

has been dealing with different aspects of communication for more than thirteen

years, first in the context of teaching, later in other areas as well. In 1988, he started

his NLP education with Gundl Kutschera and attended the NLP-Practitioner, the

NLP-Master and Trainer courses. Furthermore, he has gone through further NLP

training with Robert Dilts, Richard Bandler, John Grinder, Helmut Broichhagen,

Lucas Derks and Gunther Schmidt. Since 1992, Professor Ötsch himself has been

offering the NLP-Pracitioner course and, later on, many other seminars like

“change.design - NLP Business Trainer“. He also runs an NLP-server on the Internet

which gives a brief overview of what NLP is, which courses the “Linzer Akademie

für NLP“ (Linz Academy for NLP) offers, provides many good links to other NLP

Websites and includes a comprehensive glossary of NLP-terms (http://www.nlp.at).

The fact that Professor Ötsch teaches content, i.e. micro-economics, at university


53

made it interesting for the author to find out more about how NLP-techniques

support this kind of teaching (cf. Chapter 9 which deals with this case study).

5.3 The Questionnaire

The three expert-interviews, however, are only the first part of the methodology. For

scientific research it is not enough to hear from the experts how they apply NLP

principles and methods in their training. As the experts all have a profound NLP-

education, it is only natural that they are extremely convinced about NLP and its

techniques. Therefore, it was necessary to get some feedback from “the other side“,

i.e. the trainers' students and trainees. The author decided to conduct a quantitative

analysis and created a questionnaire to be distributed among the trainees in one

seminar of each expert to gain information on how the methods of NLP are received

and evaluated by students and trainees, whether students are aware of their own

learning styles and whether they felt the training to be learner-centred. An example

of the questionnaire can be found in the appendix. This example, however, is in

German. The quantitative study was conducted in German, as the courses where they

were distributed were not English classes. Consequently, the author would like to go

through the questions in this section and explain her intentions.

Question 1: You have been attending / have recently attended a seminar of µ. How

would you judge the quality of this seminar?

The trainees had a choice between very good, good, average and bad.

Question 2: What did you like / did you not like in this seminar?

Question 2 already goes more into depth. Students were asked to explain what they

liked and what they did not like in the very course. This was the author's first

possibility to see whether they responded positively to NLP techniques or not, no

matter whether they were aware of applied NLP or not.


54

Question 3: How did you feel addressed as an individual in the seminar?

The choice ranked from very good and good to average and not at all. With this

query the author intended to establish a clear connection to the working title of this

thesis.

Question 4: Are you aware of the technique the trainer has used in the seminar?

How would you describe this technique?

Question 4 already wanted to know whether students are aware of the technique the

trainer applied in the courses. They could choose between “yes - plus name of the

technique“ and “no“. Furthermore, they were asked to explain the technique. With

this formulation the author wanted to test how many of the students mention NLP

and whether she could find any NLP-elements in the answers of the technique

description.

Question 5: How would you judge the course design?

The matrix for trainee answers about the course design was the following:

1 2 3 4 5

interesting o o o o o boring

varied o o o o o one-sided

professional o o o o o childish

useful o o o o o useless

individual o o o o o global

learner-centred o o o o o teacher-centred

flexible o o o o o rigid

As the chapters in Part I of this thesis have explained, NLP aims at addressing all

learner types - auditory, visual and kinaesthetic. This demands trainer flexibility and

creativity and should lead to a learner-centred course design, i.e. that every

participant feels addressed as an individual. With the ranking from 1 to 5, which has

a framework of contrary criteria, the matrix shown above wants to draw a picture of

how the course design, especially its variety, individuality, flexibility and usefulness,

is received by the trainers' students.


55

Question 6: Which media or exercises /tasks supported the seminar?

Question 6 is another awareness question. It asked the students to mark the media

and exercises which supported the seminar and to give an indication whether the use

corresponded to their representational system, i.e. whether the media were used too

much, just right or too little. This question can be seen in connection with Question

12 which wanted to make students think about what learner type they are. The

author's intention was to check whether the media they marked and the judgement of

their application correspond to their preferred representational system.

Question 7: In which way is this seminar different to others?

The seventh question asked the trainees to describe in which way, if any, the very

seminar is different from other seminars they have attended. With this question the

author hoped to gain some more indications about applied NLP methods which

eventually make the experts' seminars higher quality courses.

Question 8: Do you feel that this seminar helped you acquire important

competencies for your studies / education / profession? If yes or partly, which

competencies?

Question 9: How do you feel about putting the acquired knowledge / competencies

into practice?

The Questions 8 and 9 are very important for practice. As Section 2.1 of this thesis

has explained, there is a difference between data, information, knowledge and skill.

Chapter 3 indicated that the transfer of knowledge is no longer enough.

Consequently, with these questions the author wanted to find out if the seminars

have reached their purpose of not only transferring knowledge but equipping

students with skills they can make use of in practice.

Question 10: Can you imagine that the design and technique of this seminar helps

you in the following situations?

Question 10 is another attempt to incorporate NLP's holistic concept in this thesis.

Just like the experts were asked about other possibilities of NLP application than

their field of expertise, the students of their courses were asked whether they could

imagine that such a course design and the applied technique could help them in the


56

following situations: language learning, communication, selling, content learning

and preparing for exams. A choice was given between yes, maybe and no.

Question 11: How would you describe your emotional state during the seminar?

The NLP chapter in the first part of this thesis referred to the importance of a good

emotional state for one's learning process. With Question 11 the author asked the

trainees to mark the positions which come closest to their emotional state in the

seminar.

Question 12: Thinking about your sensory impressions, what type of learner do you

think you are?

This question was already dealt with in the explanation of Question 6.

Question 13: How important is a positive attitude to life for your personal learning

success?

Question 13 is very much related to Question 11. NLP very much stresses a positive

attitude to learning and life as a success factor in one's life and profession.

Consequently, the author wanted to find out with Question 13 whether this positive

attitude to life plays a significant, neutral or no role in students' lives.

Question 14: How would you judge the following “beliefs“?

Question 14 started to pick up some of NLP's beliefs, which the author on purpose

formulated in a provocative manner and without any context given to make trainees

think. For each belief the author created a matrix similar to the one in Question 5.

Students were asked to respond to the beliefs “It is important to discover the joy of

learning“, “There is no failure, only feedback“, and “Each behaviour has a positive

intention“ with the following scheme:


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1 2 3 4 5

useful o o o o o useless

true o o o o o false

practical o o o o o theoretical

strong effect o o o o o weak effect

relevant o o o o o irrelevant

Question 15: How important are the following positions for you?

Question 15 lists several positions which already go into the direction of autonomous

learning where the learner is required to take over responsibility for his/her own

learning success. Chapter 3 of this thesis has explained that the learner should no

longer be only the recipient of knowledge, but be prepared to design his/her own

learning and to give input into training sessions, which, again, demands trainer

flexibility. Furthermore, a good relationship between trainer and trainees is

necessary, which should result in a joyful learning atmosphere where everybody is

enabled to reach his/her learning goals. Therefore, in Question 15 students were

asked to mark whether the following positions are very important, relevant, not very

important or not important at all: responsibility for one's own learning success,

decide oneself about time and place of learning, select learning media oneself,

reflection of interest in the training, possibility to give input, nice and likeable

trainer, humour and fun in the training, trainer flexibility, rigid training programme

and having clear learning goals.

Question 16: What does NLP stand for?

Finally, with Question 16 the author wanted to find out whether students know what

NLP stands for and offered a choice of terms looking similar: Neuro-Linguistic -

Processes, Neuro-Linguistic -Programming, Natural-Life-Programme, Neuro-Lipo-

Pigment, and Neuro-Linear-Processes.


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After having explained the direction of the questionnaire and the intentions behind it,

the author would now like to present the results of the interviews and the quantitative

analysis.


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6 NLP in Training Situations

In the conducted interviews and the seminar “NLP for Language Teachers“ the

author attended in Graz, she has found out that there are several aspects of applying

NLP that fit for any training situation. This chapter intends to summarise these

aspects and to describe what makes a good training situation and which criteria are

necessary for the trainer and the students to apply and benefit from NLP.

As Chapter 3 of this thesis has already mentioned, a common problem in today's

learning and training culture is that trainers teach from their point of view and do not

pay attention to learner needs (Stanek, personal interview, April 5, 2000). Teachers

are not aware of different learning styles; they teach the way they were taught or the

way they prefer to learn. Consequently, they need to become aware of these

differences and learn how to adapt their teaching styles, especially to learn to

become more flexible. (Rosenberg, e-mail to author, March 18, 2000).

NLP offers a variety of possibilities to solve this problem. Teachers can use rapport

to increase the understanding of trainees' models of the world.

Greeting students, smiling at them and showing them that the trainer

likes and understands them can already contribute a lot to

building up stable rapport and, as a consequence, a good training atmosphere.

Mr. Stanek reported that many trainers see their trainees as “pupils“ and not as

“clients“. However, treating trainees as clients rather than pupils is very important,

because it makes is possible that the trainer stands on the same level as his trainees,

and not at a higher one like in traditional schooling. This would create too much

distance and destroy any rapport and relaxed atmosphere. If the level of personal

relationship works, it will be much easier to transfer knowledge, and the factual level

will work as well (Stanek, personal interview, April 5, 2000).

In this context, a good emotional state of the trainer and his/her trainees is also very

important. A trainer will hardly be able to create a good and relaxed training


60

atmosphere if he/she is in a bad mood or has to struggle with private problems.

Concerning this point, we should remember the sensitivity of children. They can tell

exactly from their parents' voice and their behaviour if something is wrong. Trainers

should keep in mind that their trainees are sensitive as well and that a bad emotional

state has effects on their learning progress. Consequently, it is of utmost importance

for trainers to disassociate themselves from private problems. This is where NLP's

technique of anchoring comes in. Thinking about positive and successful

experiences, or establishing eye-contact with trainees who are very interested in the

seminar can help to bring back the trainer's positive attitude and energy (Aricò,

personal interview, January 26, 2000).

Vice versa, it is important for the trainer to be aware of and sensitive to the mood

and emotional state of the group. A trainer will find it hard to motivate, inspire and

make the group feel enthusiastic if he/she enters the classroom full of power and

ready to present a huge amount of exercises or content on a Friday evening to

participants who have worked very hard all week long and feel tired. According to

NLP, the trainer will be much more successful if he/she goes into the very mood of

the group. Phrases like “It has been a tough week for us all and you must feel tired.

We will start slowly with today's evening programme. Is this ok for you all?“ put the

trainer on the same level as his/her trainees, establish rapport, show understanding

and will, in fact, contribute to a better training atmosphere (Rosenberg, seminar,

February 4 and 5, 2000).

A positive attitude to learners and the belief in the resources each learner has and

that can be activated, if conditions are favourable, also helps to build up a teacher's

self-confidence, which is very important indeed, as a teacher will never be able to do

his teaching well if he/she is blocked by the belief “I am such a bad teacher“ (Aricò,

personal interview, January 26, 2000). Professor Ötsch stated in the interview that,

unfortunately, teaching does not enjoy a high status at university. Investing time and

energy in good teaching is very low, as many university teachers do not see

themselves as teachers, but rather as researchers. For excellent teachers, however,

teaching is like exercising, which gives them energy, and they feel happy and

relaxed after their classes. This belief and attitude should become a desirable goal for

every teacher (Ötsch, personal interview, May 9, 2000).


61

Furthermore, with its VAK-model (VAK = visual, auditory, kinaesthetic), NLP

offers a magnificent opportunity of addressing each trainee's representational system,

and is, therefore, a very individual approach to teaching (Stanek, personal interview,

April 5, 2000). How the experts design the use of media to address visual, auditory

and kinaesthetic learner types will be described in the case-studies. It is, however,

more important for a trainer to find out about his/her trainees' preferred

representational system first to be able to adapt the course design. The author would

like to describe a few possibilities to do this in the following examples.

Ms. Aricò, for example, uses the following learning-strategy exercise. The trainer

writes approximately twelve numbers, letters or symbols (or mixed) onto the

blackboard. The trainees may have a look at these, afterwards the blackboard is

turned away. Now it is the trainees' task to remember and write down as many

numbers, letters or symbols of the blackboard as possible. When this step is

completed, the trainer asks his/her trainees how they remembered these numbers,

letters and symbols. For example, as a certain row of numbers and pictures - this

would characterise a visual type, or with a certain rhythm - this would indicate that

trainees are auditory or kinaesthetically oriented. With this exercise it is possible for

the trainer to get a better impression about the preferred representational system of

his/her course participants and he/she can adapt the course design accordingly

(Aricò, personal interview, January 26, 2000).

Another possibility is to read out a story for the participants. Afterwards, students are

asked to write down or report what they remembered in particular. Depending on the

choice of words, e.g. “the movements of the Indian horse“ or “the brilliant blue sky“,

the trainer can draw conclusions about the various learner types. In this case, it

would be a kinaesthetic type reporting about the movements of the horse and rather a

visual type speaking about the blue colour of the sky (Ibid).

In the seminar “NLP for Language Teachers“ the author attended, several criteria

were worked out by the participants of how observing trainees can give hints about

their representational system.


62

Visual learner types

• make very much use of neon markers or rulers

• ask the teacher to write things on the blackboard

• are very tidy and use files with separators

• write in the same colours as the teacher on the blackboard or flipchart

• like receiving handouts and want to have a copy of overhead-slides

• usually bring a dictionary with them to the class, which gives them a feeling of

security, as they can have a look how a word is written down

• show an orderly hand-writing

• eventually prefer working alone to group-/pair-work

• want to see the phonetics to be able to imagine how a word is pronounced

Auditory learner types

• hardly write anything down during classes

• learn by listening and talking

• may talk to themselves or think aloud

• learn and memorise in sequences

• often speak in rhythmic pattern

• like music and rhythm.

Kinaesthetic learners

• like to sit comfortably and like to move

• enjoy role plays very much

• like to play with objects during class

• need to feel well and comfortable in the group.

In a real learner-centred course with the intention of increasing learner-autonomy

learners can also be challenged to find out more about their preferred learning styles

themselves, in single or in pair work. For instance, learners could go through a

survey with different statements about learning, like the one by Ms. Marjorie

Rosenberg and can be found in the appendix (Rosenberg, seminar, February 4 and 5,

2000).


63

Another possibility to discover more about one's own modality is the “improvised

Swassing & Barbe Diagnostic Activity“. The activity is done in pairs sitting opposite

each other. Each person has a total of twelve items. There must be three different

sorts of items and four pieces of each. For example, each person could have four

coins, four paper clips and four erasers. Person A starts by laying out four items in a

pattern which Person B looks at until he/she thinks he/she is able to duplicate the

pattern. Person A then covers the items and Person B tries to reproduce the pattern

with his/her items. Person A adds one item each time until it becomes too difficult

for Person B to remember. This is continued through six different input-output

combinations, which are shown in the matrix below, then the pairs switch roles. It is

important for both Person A to observe carefully what Person B is doing, as well as

for Person B to become aware of his/her own strategies.

Person A is responsible for choosing the items and their order. For the visual and

kinaesthetic mode, he/she must arrange them. For the auditory mode, he/she needs to

arrange them and say them aloud.

Person B's tasks are the following:

INPUT OUTPUT

Visual looks at items ð Kinaesthetic/

Visual

arranges items

Visual looks at items ð Auditory says order aloud

Auditory hears order of items ð Kinaesthetic/

Visual

arranges items

Auditory hears order of items ð Auditory says order aloud

Kinaesthetic feels items ð Kinaesthetic/

Visual

arranges items

Kinaesthetic feels items ð Auditory says order aloud

Figure 11: Swassing & Barbe Diagnostic Activity (Rosenberg, 2000: 25)

Another important factor which is closely related to NLP's feel-well principle and

good emotional state is the learning environment. Ms. Aricò and Mr. Stanek both

referred to and confirmed this importance. Both trainers do not use the classical

arrangement of tables and chairs in the training room, but use U-forms or a form


64

where the participants sit together in groups and are able to see each other, which

makes it easier to build rapport. Ms. Stanek does not even use tables because they

are barriers to communication. A sunny and bright room is of utmost importance to

him. Even more, for Mr. Stanek a good learning environment in a seminar also

includes good food or going outside to enjoy fresh air and scenery (Stanek, personal

interview, April 5, 2000). Professor Ötsch also believes in the relevance of the

learning environment and stated that it is often connected to anchors. For example,

the smell of “Hörsaal 1“ (Lecutre Hall 1) at the Johannes Kepler University in Linz

is a negative anchor for many students, which hinders them in their learning process.

However, Professor Ötsch also argues that teacher beliefs in the context of a good

learning environment are decisive. For instance, if a sunny room is important for the

trainer, it will also play a significant role for his/her trainees. If the trainer does not

refer to it, it will not be that relevant (Ötsch, personal interview, May 9,2000).

This argument leads the author to the qualifications and the characteristics a good

trainer who teaches with NLP must have and, on the other hand, what is expected

from trainees:

First of all, trainers need to be congruent. They have to believe in what they are

doing in order to teach it to others. Otherwise, they will lose their credibility

(Rosenberg, e-mail to author, March 18, 2000).

Moreover, a good and profound NLP-education is a prerequisite. All three experts

agree that courses which try to teach NLP-methods in a few days or weeks are not

serious, even dangerous, especially when techniques like anchoring are used.

Anchoring may also create negative feelings, and it can be very dangerous for

psychologically unstable persons if a trainer does not know how to deal with such a

situation (Aricò, personal interview, January 26, 2000).

Trainees, on the other hand, need to show a certain amount of openness and

flexibility. They need to be prepared to try out new things and to get involved in the

seminar (Stanek, personal interview, April 5,2000). This may be a hurdle for very

structured and rigid personalities (Aricò, personal interview, February 2, 2000).


65

After having discussed general NLP-principles and prerequisites for a successful

seminar, the author would now like to go into detail by describing the three case-

study situations mentioned before. The following structure will be pursued. Firstly,

the author will deal with common problems in the learning situation and then try to

describe alternatives and solutions using the information she could gain from the

interviews and a personally attended seminar. This descriptive part, which represents

the trainer's view mainly, will be followed by an analysis of the quantitative study.

The questionnaire examines how what the experts say they do is received by their

trainees.


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7 NLP and Language Learning

“Language is about concepts and ideas – it’s not about the use of the subjunctive. […] Communi-cation is what it’s all about. Everything else is irrelevant.“ (Beaver, 1999).

Language is one of the many forms of communication (Beaver, 1999) and learning a

foreign language, in particular English, is a growing social and economic necessity

in many countries (Maguire, 1997). This case-study is built upon an interview

conducted with Ms. Karin Aricò at the Johannes Kepler University in Linz, upon

personal experience the author has made in the seminar “NLP for Language

Teachers” and conversations and e-mail contacts with Ms. Marjorie Rosenberg,

Master of Fine Arts and NLP-Trainer who gave the author valuable insight into her

methods. The case-study intends to give ideas how commonly reported problems in

language learning can be overcome and how traditional language classes can be

designed more learner-centred with the use of NLP-elements.

7.1 What Makes Language Learning Difficult

Concerning the point “problems in language learning“ the interview with Ms. Aricò

took its starting point with a statement made by Diana Beaver who is a Member of

the Institute of Linguists and a consultant and trainer of NLP:

“People are nervous about getting totally involved in learning

another language because they are terrified of losing their identities

[…]” (Beaver, 1999).

One of the crucial problems that hinder people in learning a foreign language is fear.

Ms. Aricò stated in the interview that this fear is mainly derived from the negative

experiences students have made at school, where teachers only stress the mistakes

they make, but leave unmentioned what they do correctly. This kind of teaching


67

creates fear and negative beliefs in the learner, which leads to the effect that learners

set themselves unnecessary limitations. Ms. Aricò has experienced several learners

say “I will never learn that” or “I do not dare to speak out loud if I am not perfect”.

They show a real lack of spontaneity, refuse the principle of “learning by doing” and

are terrified about trying out new things. The reason for this attitude may lie in the

very analytical way of teaching and learning traditional schooling pursues. Ms. Aricò

referred to the differences of adult and child learning (see also Section 2.1 of this

thesis) and reported in the interview that children like to learn very intuitively and by

playing games, whereas adults learn very analytically and like a system of rules, as

traditional schooling mainly stimulates and encourages the left brain hemisphere.

Exactly this system of rules, however, often limits learners in their capabilities and

provokes the problems mentioned above (Aricò, personal interview, February 2,

2000).

7.2 NLP - Methods and Exercises in Language Classes

Ms. Aricò's prime intention is to take away students' fear of the foreign language.

Good rapport between trainer and trainees as a basic rule of communication is a

prerequisite. As already mentioned in Chapter 6, this includes a communicative

arrangement of tables. Furthermore, it is important to allow mistakes, because

“nobody is perfect“. Ms. Aricò paces her students by repeating what they do or say

correctly. In comparison to many traditional language teachers she stresses the

positive and the correct answers of students and not their mistakes. She tries to

support her students' self-confidence by letting them work in very small groups or in

pairs and does not force them to role-play in front of the whole class, which may

again create fear.

Another remedy to help learners of foreign languages build up a positive belief about

themselves are songs. Ms. Aricò asks her trainees to listen for certain words and to

write down how often these words could be heard. This creates a positive belief in

the learners, as they become aware of what they already understand in the foreign

language. In addition, students often join in singing, when they hear a song and have

a feeling of getting acquainted with the very language.


68

There is one more situation, especially in university courses, that creates fear: the

final exam. Ms. Aricò does not do any grammar checks in her examinations, but puts

more emphasis on students' writing and creativity. For example, they need to find

arguments for a project of the European Union or to write a comment on a discussion

on TV. In this process, a discussion in groups is possible and allowed in the first

hour of the exam. The purpose of this procedure is, again, to take away fear. In the

second hour of the exam students have to write down their arguments individually.

The following NLP techniques, which Ms. Aricò applies in her language classes and

the author partly has experienced personally in Ms. Rosenberg's seminar, shall be

explained explicitly:

• Modelling:

Ms. Aricò presents listening comprehension exercises to her students. They have

to find out what was being talked about. Afterwards, the trainees are asked to

role-play in groups to the same content they heard on the tape. In this way, they

model the native speakers from the tape, as they try to adopt their vocabulary,

expressions and pronunciation.

• Pacing:

Ms. Aricò likes to pace her students by repeating and reinforcing correct

answers, by meeting them at their own learning pace and by allowing every

learner his / her own learning pace and learning style. This is also what children

do: They decide for themselves how fast and in which way they learn.

Consequently, Ms. Aricò paces her students and pursues the principle of picking

up the learners at the point where they are at the moment and then lead them with

new inputs.

• Future Pacing:

This technique can be easily applied in connection with role-plays. For example,

Ms. Aricò asks her students to role-play a hotel reservation. The trainees work in

groups and when they finish the exercise, Ms. Aricò positively reinforces them

by saying “When you travel to Italy in the summer, you will already be able to


69

book a room perfectly.” The current status of students being able to book a room

at a hotel in the foreign language is projected into the future and gives students a

positive feeling of what they already can express in Italian.

• Leading:

In this context, the trainer gives a new input. For example, Ms. Aricò wants her

students to tell her which topics are of interest to them. However, which text is

being dealt with is selected by the trainer. This selection is the leading technique

the trainer applies, as she is aware of her intentions with the very text and leads

the students in this direction, e.g. discovering new grammar structures or making

them aware of certain linguistic characteristics. Ms. Aricò does not appreciate

traditional teaching of grammar. She prefers to let her students explore grammar,

when, for example, trainees have to find all verbs in a specific tense in a text or

in a song. Then they are requested to make hypothesis about the formulation of

the tense or grammar structure.

• Reframing:

Section 4.3.5 of this thesis has explained that reframing means to give something

a different context or content. Ms. Aricò applies this technique in particular with

difficult learner types who disturb the class by calling out solutions before

weaker students or beginners even had the time to think about the question. Ms.

Aricò changes the disturbing behaviour of these students into a positive one by

using them as specialists for more difficult tasks. In contrast, she also addresses

the beginners directly with easier exercises that are suitable for them.

The same technique can be applied for changing the context and content of an

unsuccessful presentation of a group. The bad presentation receives a different

“frame”, and the positive aspects are emphasised, e.g. “You have now received a

lot of information about the Benetton family.”


70

• Metaphors

Ms. Aricò has experienced that most students favour stories. Therefore, she likes

to tell short stories, also stories from her own experiences, and likes to use

metaphors to explain vocabulary.

• Anchoring

With the anchoring technique Ms. Aricò reanimates the positive experiences of

the group. For example, she likes to recall her students’ memories to the journey

to Italy they went on together. “Do you remember how much fun we had?” In

this way, she triggers the positive learning experience of her students to the

present (Aricò, personal interview, February 2, 2000).

The author herself has experienced the anchoring technique in language training.

There are several other possibilities and rituals of setting anchors in trainees, for

example music and colours. Ms. Rosenberg repeats playing a certain song to end

a break. Students are prepared to get back to work again, and they know when

they hear this song the pause is going to end. During this song trainees can finish

their coffee and their conversation with other colleagues in peace and quiet.

Another ritual is using different coloured paper for different activities, for

example yellow colour for grammar sheets, pink colour for songs. When students

see the colour, they know exactly what is going to come next.

However, caution has to be paid to the setting of negative anchors. For example,

a video camera or a tape recorder may evoke negative feelings and fear. Many

students remember their negative experiences with these tools at school or at

other traditionally held seminars. Consequently, it requires a great deal of trainer

sensitivity to use these media (Rosenberg, seminar, February 5, 2000).

• Meta-Programmes

Ms. Aricò applies NLP meta-programmes especially for teaching reading

strategies, for example the “away from – towards” and the “similarities –

differences” meta-programmes.

When Ms. Aricò goes through a text with her students, there are two possibilities

to do so: The first one is from global understanding to detailed understanding. In


71

this process the primary aim for students is to find out the main statements of the

text before going into detail. This is called the “towards”-strategy. For difficult

texts, however, Ms. Aricò prefers the second procedure. She first explains

difficult vocabulary and expressions to take away students’ fear from the text. So

this time, she starts with the details, i.e. the vocabulary and structures, before

going to a global understanding. This technique is named “away from”-

technique.

The “similarities – differences” technique is applied in pair-works. It is possible

to put two communicative students together (= similarities-technique) or to form

a group of one student who likes to talk very much and one student who is rather

silent (= differences-technique). The intention of this grouping is that the

communicative student should draw the other one out of his / her reserve.

• VAK in language teaching:

Especially in language teaching it is quite easy to do exercises that address the

representational systems of learners. Concerning English language classes there

are various possibilities to practise the use of tenses in a learner modality centred

way.

Visual learners, for example, could work together in pairs to practise the English

present perfect tense. One partner looks at the other, then he / she closes the eyes

and the other partner has to change something on himself / herself, e.g. remove a

ring from the finger or open a button of the shirt etc. When the colleague opens

the eyes again, he / she is asked “What have I changed?” and has to guess. In this

way, addressing visual learners is combined with practising grammar in an

entertaining way.

In the same sense, the following auditory tool can be applied for practising and

explaining the past tense: All the group members close their eyes and the trainer

makes a noise, for example, he / she might clap his / her hands or tear a paper

apart. The trainees only concentrate on the noise. When they open their eyes

again, the teacher asks them “What did you hear?” and they have to answer using

the past tense, e.g. “I heard you clap your hands”. The fact that the noise is over


72

now and does not last to the present may make the use of the past tense clearer to

auditory learners.

Kinaesthetic learners, however, need to move and feel something to learn. For

example, they could be asked to role-play a statue, or a tree or any other object.

One student starts and one after the other joins. When they have finished their

role-play, they sit down again and start talking about the exercise. The trainer

might ask, “What happened? Who was the first to begin the role-play? What did

the others do?” etc. and the students would have to use the past tense in their

answers. They feel that the object they role-played is not there any longer. In this

way, they “feel” a better understanding of the past tense.

Another exercise to practise the present continuous tense that actually addresses

all learner types is to role-play a machine. One student starts making a certain

movement and noise of a machine. Other students keep joining making different

noises and different movements. The other students watch them and talk about

their colleagues’ activities: “What are they doing?” This exercise serves the

visuals – they can “see” what their colleagues are doing, as well as the

kinaesthetics – they can move and play, and the auditory learners – they can

make a noise and “hear” which noise their partners are making.

All these exercises have one major advantage in common – N.T.P., which is

short for “No Teacher Preparation” (Rosenberg, seminar, February 4 and 5,

2000). These effective exercises hardly require any trainer preparation. Thus the

teacher can invest more time in preparing other exercises that may be more time-

consuming, for example the “re-teaching” exercises. The sense of re-teaching is

that kinaesthetic learners cannot fully follow the “teaching” process but may

need “re-teaching”. The author would like to explain this technique by using an

example of the third person “s” in the English language and asking questions

with “does”:

The trainer writes the following sentence on the blackboard:


73

The attention of the learners is drawn to the use of the third person “s”. An

auditory reinforcement is given by explaining orally, a visual reinforcement by

using colour. The trainer now explains what happens when this statement is

transformed into a question, i.e. the use of “does” and that the third person “s” in

“eats” disappears.

The visually oriented students notice that the “s” of “eats” moves to the question

word “does” by the colour. The auditory learners realise the difference because of

the trainer’s oral explanation and use of words. However, what happens to the

Maria eats pizza.

Maria eats pizza.

Does Maria eat pizza?


74

kinaesthetic learners? With the “teaching” methods used in this example they are

fairly neglected, they need some kind of “re-teaching”. This can be done by the

following activity:

The trainer prepares different colourful cards for each word and punctuation mark

and selects one student each word to hold the card.

The students place themselves in the correct word order and the kinaesthetics can

feel that the third person “s” of “eats” is there. As a next step, the “point” is

replaced by the student with the “?”-card and the student with the “s” is replaced

by the trainee with the “Does”-card. They have to move around to find the correct

word order again.

Maria eat s •

pizza

Maria eat

Does

pizza

?


75

This kind of re-teaching helps the kinaesthetic learners in their understanding of

the correct formulation of a question. They can experience that the third person

“s” of “eats” moves to the question-word “does”.

The same kind of exercise can be applied for teaching the names of colours in a

foreign language. Students move around and according to the instruction of the

trainer, e.g. “Touch something blue” they look for an object of this colour and

touch it. In this way, kinaesthetically oriented students can really “feel” the

colours (personal experience in seminar “NLP for Language Teachers”, February

4 and 5, 2000).

The techniques described in this section make it obvious that in these language

classes the learners are really part of the training, because they are directly involved.

The following paragraphs draw a picture of trainees' feedback.

7.3 Feedback from Trainees

This section presents the results which were achieved from the quantitative analysis

in Ms. Aricò's Italian II course in the summer semester 2000. The questionnaire was

distributed to 33 students. 31 persons among these were between 18 and 30 years

old, one student was aged between 31 and 40, and one more between 41 and 50

years. 67 per cent of the questioned students were female, 33 per cent male.

Concerning their current occupation, 48 per cent of the trainees were full-time

students, 39 per cent part-time students and 6 per cent were employees.

The data which could be gained from the questionnaire are as follows:


76

Question 1: Quality of Seminar

Figure 12: Quality of Seminar

Concerning the quality of the seminar the diagram clearly shows that a great

majority of Ms. Aricò's students, i.e. 80 per cent, considered her teaching to be very

good. Still 18 per cent believed it to be good, whereas only 2 per cent voted for

average. Nobody ranked the quality to be bad.


Many responses came to this open question. The most significant ones relate to the

topics treated in the course and the use of media. 64 per cent liked the current topics

and that Ms. Aricò involves her students in the topic -selection. Although most of the

students were content with the topic selection, still 18 per cent would prefer less

politics in the course and three per cent did not like the topics relating to school and

university.

A majority of 55 per cent appreciated Ms. Aricò's use of media in the course, in

particular songs, videos and films. At the same time, however, the bad quality of the

video recorder and a too small TV were mentioned as negative points.

The varied selection of exercises and tasks as well as the teaching of competencies

relevant for practice and the tempo of teaching were judged very positively. Nine per

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

Quality

Per

cen

tag

e

A 80% 18% 2% 0%

very good good average bad


77

cent referred to going to the cinema together, to Ms. Aricò's creativity and her

stories. However, nine per cent of the trainees did not feel good about the

presentations they had to do. They had little motivation for preparation and

considered the presentations of their colleagues to be boring for the audience.

Another nine per cent felt overloaded with texts, they would prefer fewer texts and

going through these texts together. Group work was seen positively as well as

negatively, depending on the students' preferences.

A very positive image was given about the atmosphere in the course. The students

liked Ms. Aricò's friendliness and the very personal relationship between trainer and

trainees and among trainees as well. Obviously, rapport was established very well in

the course. Furthermore, students felt that Ms. Aricò involves and motivates

everybody and that course requirements as well as explanations were very clear and

exact.

A detailed table with absolute and percentage figures to the reported arguments can

be found in the appendix.


Figure 13: Individuality

The response to this question is very clear: A vast majority felt addressed as an

individual participant in Ms. Aricò's course, 64 per cent very good and 33 per cent

good. This result is a significant proof of the individual and learner-centred approach

of Ms. Aricò's language teaching.

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

Per

cent

age

A 64% 33% 3% 0%

very good good average not at all


78



Figure 14: Awareness of Technique

The result of Question 4 was a clear “no“: 79 per cent were not aware of the

technique Ms. Aricò applies. It was interesting to see, however, that six per cent

clearly responded with NLP and that nine per cent also answered yes, but did not

mention NLP. Yet in their description the author found several elements that come

very close to NLP, for example that teaching is adapted to sensory impressions of

individuals by the use of different media. Other descriptions ranked from

autonomous working and learning by doing to the sequence and combination of

reading/listening, speaking in pairs and general discussion. Some students also

referred to Ms. Aricò's resource exercises and to a unconscious and intuitive

language learning process.

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%P

erc

en

tag

e

A 6,1% 9,1% 78,8% 6,1%

yes NLPyes (NLP not mentioned)

no no response


79


1 2 3 4 5

interesting 60,6% 27,3% 12,1% 0,0% 0,0% boring

varied 60,6% 24,2% 15,2% 0,0% 0,0% one-sided

professional 57,6% 42,4% 0,0% 0,0% 0,0% childish

useful 54,5% 42,4% 3,0% 0,0% 0,0% useless

individual 27,3% 45,5% 21,2% 6,1% 0,0% global

learner-centred 42,4% 36,4% 18,2% 3,0% 0,0% teacher-centred

flexible 45,5% 36,4% 18,2% 0,0% 0,0% rigid

Figure 15: Course Design

The chart shown above reflects explicitly the arguments students reported in their

answers to Question 2 - what they liked or did not like in the seminar. More than 50

per cent gave a one to each of the following characteristics: interesting, varied,

professional and useful. The individual, learner-centred and flexible approach of the

teaching method was also evaluated with good grades.

Question 6: Which media or exercises / tasks supported the seminar?

The following table lists the media which were recognised by Ms. Aricò's students.

overhead slides videos, films flipchart

filming with videocamera penboard singing songs

pictures listening to music blackboard

handouts games with motion group / pair work

individual work role playing discussion

posters exercises with cassettes story telling

listening to texts text reading crosswords

Internet / Intranet

Figure 16: Recognised Media in Ms. Aricò's Course


80

It was interesting to see that only two media were marked by 100 per cent of the

trainees: listening to music and text reading. Still 94 per cent marked group/pair-

work, 91 per cent videos and films and discussion, 88 per cent the blackboard and

exercises with cassettes. The rest of the media, which are listed in the above table,

were marked with percentage figures between three and 69 per cent. For details see

appendix.

The reasons for these differences in noticing the use of media may be various.

Firstly, it may be that some media did not appeal at all to students' preferred sensory

modality and, consequently, they did not realise them. Secondly, the other way

round might also be possible - that students did like these media so much that their

use is almost automatic and not consciously realised. Thirdly, it may also be the case

that the author did not define and name the media exactly enough and that some

students had a different understanding of the terms.

The second part of Question 6 wanted to get information if the interviewed students

agreed with the use of the very media or exercise or whether its use was too much or

too little. Most students were very confident with the media and exercises. 30 per

cent, however, would prefer to see more videos and films, 21 per cent would like to

listen to music more often, 18 per cent want more discussion, 12 per cent desire

more role playing and nine per cent would like to get more handouts and to listen to

stories more often. There was only one significant figure for an excessive use of

media: 12 per cent found that text reading was too much, which was already

indicated in Question 2.


The following chart shows the results of this open question:

Criteria %

relaxed atmosphere 18%

fair teacher 6%

very personal 18%

interesting topics 24%

relevant for practice 15%


81

learning from each other 3%

addressing trainees individually 21%

interactive, varied, flexible 24%

not compulsory – higher motivation 12%

no feeling of stress, no unnecessary pressure like in French 6%

friendliness, likeable teacher 9%

use of media 6%

Ms. Aricò is very open to students' problems, always ready to help 12%

better structure 3%

understandable, clear 3%

team work 3%

not much work required 3%

too much like school, too little independent work (e.g. project) 9%

NLP application 6%

no response 3%

Figure 17: Difference to Other Seminars

This table is a full reproduction of the answers that came up. The highest percentage

figures of 24 and 21 per cent refer to the chosen topics and the course design, which

is very flexible, interactive and varied. The relaxed and friendly atmosphere was

another point that was mentioned again. Six per cent of the questioned students even

directly responded with NLP application, which equals the six per cent who were

aware of NLP application in Question 4.


82


competencies for your studies / education / profession?

Figure 18: Competencies

A significant majority of 82 per cent are clearly convinced that Ms. Aricò's course

helped them acquire important competencies for their further education and

profession. Another 15 per cent voted for partly, and only three per cent felt that they

did not acquire any new skills.

Among the competencies mentioned by the trainees were a better use of the Italian

language and knowledge of the culture, but also social competencies like working in

a team and a feeling for personal development and self-confidence as well as NLP.

These answers underline the holistic approach of Ms. Aricò's teaching, as not only

language learning is a matter of interest, but also the personalities of her students.

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

Pe

rce

nta

ge

A 82% 15% 3%

yes partly no


83


into practice?

Figure 19: Putting Competencies into Practice

As Figure 19 shows, 97 per cent of Ms. Aricò's students feel very good or good

about the practical use of the acquired knowledge and competencies. Only three

percent have mixed feelings.



yes maybe no

Language learning 79% 15% 6%

Communication 85% 15% 0%

Selling 24% 52% 24%

Content learning 61% 24% 15%

Preparing for exams 61% 21% 18%

Figure 20: Usefulness of Technique in Different Situations

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

Per

cent

age

A 24% 73% 3% 0%



84

79 per cent of the questioned students are convinced that Ms. Aricò's teaching

method helped them in their language learning. Even more students, 85 per cent, find

it useful for communication. Content learning and preparing for exams is also

supported by a majority of 61 per cent. Concerning selling 52 per cent consider the

technique eventually useful, the answers “yes“ and “no“ balance each other with 24

per cent. The selling situations obviously is a matter of uncertainty, probably because

it is not directly related to the Italian II course the students attended.

The author was very happy to receive even more feedback from the trainees. Some

students reported that Ms. Aricò's course helped them develop their self-

presentation, their ability to work in a team and to work through texts in a very

efficient manner.


The importance of a good emotional state for a successful learning process has

already been stressed several times in this thesis. The following data could be

obtained from Ms. Aricò's students:

Figure 21: Emotional State

6%

12%

48%

79%

33%

61%

76%

6%

33%

3%

9%

55%

0%

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%

under stress

tense

concentrated

relaxed

receptive

tired

motivated

positive attitude

indifferent

expectant

negative attitude

passive

eager to learn

Percentage


85

Figure 21 clearly shows that the majority of Ms. Aricò's students show a positive

attitude to the course and felt very motivated, receptive and relaxed, which might be

an effect of Ms. Aricò's resource exercises. A rather high percentage, however, also

felt tired - 33 per cent. Some of the students blamed Monday morning, when Ms.

Aricò's course took place, for their tiredness.


think you are?

Figure 22: Learner Types

The data which could be gained from this question indicate that Ms. Aricòs's

students are very well aware of their learning preferences. Nobody crossed the point

“do not know“. A minority of the trainees, i.e. three per cent, consider themselves to

be auditory learner types, already 27 per cent think they are primarily visually

oriented, and a majority of 67 per cent could not tell exactly and marked a mixture.

Among these students the distribution is as follows:

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

Per

cen

tag

e

A 3% 27% 3% 67% 0%

auditory visual kinaesthetic mixture do not know


86

Figure 23: Mixed learner types distribution

42 per cent think they are visual and auditory, nine per cent each believe they are

visual and kinaesthetic or auditory and kinaesthetic, and six percent learn in all three

modalities.


success?

Figure 24: Importance of Positive Attitude

For the majority of the questioned students a positive attitude to life is a crucial

factor for their personal learning success. Only nine per cent marked neutral, and

three per cent did not know. The results of this question are also reflected in

Question 11, where 76 per cent of the students stated that they had a positive attitude

to the course.

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

Per

cen

tag

eA 42% 9% 9% 6%

vis+aud vis+kin aud+kin vis+aud+kin

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

Per

cent

age

A 88% 9% 0% 0% 3%

very important

neutralnot very

importantirrelevant do not know


87

Question 14: How would you judge the following “beliefs“?

It is important to discover the joy of learning.

1 2 3 4 5 n.r.

useful 57,6% 24,2% 9,1% 3,0% 0,0% 6,1% useless

true 60,6% 21,2% 3,0% 6,1% 9,1% 0,0% false

practical 6,1% 27,3% 36,4% 24,2% 0,0% 6,1% theoretical

strong effect 6,1% 45,5% 36,4% 6,1% 3,0% 3,0% weak effect

relevant 3,0% 51,5% 33,3% 12,1% 0,0% 0,0% irrelevant

There is no failure, only feedback.

1 2 3 4 5 n.r.

useful 18,2% 42,4% 15,2% 9,1% 9,1% 6,1% useless

true 6,1% 21,2% 45,5% 6,1% 15,2% 6,1% false




Each behaviour has a positive intention.

1 2 3 4 5 n.r.

useful 18,2% 21,2% 36,4% 0,0% 15,2% 9,1% useless

true 12,1% 15,2% 27,3% 18,2% 24,2% 3,0% false




Figure 25: Beliefs

As already mention in Chapter 5 of this thesis where the author described her

intentions with the questionnaire, these beliefs were formulated in a provocative

manner on purpose. In the table shown above the author marked the highest

percentage figures to elucidate the meaningfulness. Especially the first belief “It is


88

important to discover the joy of learning“ was given very good grades by the

trainees. More than 50 per cent each found it useful, true and relevant. The

uncertainty obviously grew with the second belief “There is no failure, only

feedback“. The highest percentage figures are ranked around the middle. A trend

towards a positive thinking concerning this believe can, nevertheless, be noticed.

Concerning the third belief “Each behaviour has a positive intention“ the highest

percentage figures can be found at the neutral position. The rest diverges very much

between the good and bad grades. However, the fact that the students did not

automatically reject this belief makes the author assume that they thought about it

and tried to believe in the positive.


very relevant not very not important

important important at all

responsibility for own learning success 72,7% 27,3% 0,0% 0,0%

decide oneself about time and place of learning 60,6% 33,3% 3,0% 3,0%

select media oneself 30,3% 39,4% 30,3% 0,0%

my interests should be met in the training 33,3% 63,6% 3,0% 0,0%

possibility to give input in training 39,4% 48,5% 12,1% 0,0%

nice and likeable trainer 57,6% 39,4% 0,0% 3,0%

humour, joy and fun in the training 54,5% 36,4% 9,1% 0,0%

flexibility of trainer 45,5% 42,4% 9,1% 3,0%

rigid, good organised training programme 27,3% 27,3% 39,4% 6,1%

have clear learning goals 45,5% 45,5% 9,1% 0,0%

Figure 26: Important Positions for Learning

The results which could be obtained form this question demonstrate that Ms. Aricò's

students are already far along the way of taking over responsibility for their own

learning process concerning design, time and location of learning, giving input and

having fun with learning. It is important for them to set their own learning goals and

enjoy flexibility.


89


Figure 27: Meaning of NLP

A clear majority of 88 per cent chose the correct answer of Neuro Linguistic

Programming and are probably familiar with Ms. Aricò's methods. It is interesting,

however, that only six per cent in Question 4 claimed to know that Ms. Aricò applies

NLP, but 88 per cent do know the correct meaning of NLP.

12%

88%

0%

0%

0%

0%

0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%

Natural Linguistic Processes

Neuro Linguistic Programming

Natural Life Programme

Neuro Lipo Pigment

Neuro Linear Processes

no response

Percentage


90

8 NLP in Communication – “Selling“

“Everybody lives by selling something.“ (R.L. Stevenson, as cited in Cohen 1991: 375)

As already mentioned in Section 3.2 of this thesis today’s ongoing globalisation

promotes the international sales business. In this branch good and effective

communication is a must for every seller. Winfried Bachmann and Armin Priester

write in their book “Win-Win – Die Handschrift des erfolgreichen Verkäufers” that it

is very important for human beings who professionally depend on many and good

contacts with clients to know what makes them appear likeable to the other person

and how they can create and keep good rapport (Bachmann 1992: 103). The

following case study is an attempt to find out what makes a good seller and how

NLP can support communication in the selling business. It is based upon an

interview conducted with Mr. Wolfgang Stanek, the corresponding literature and a

quantitative study conducted in one of Mr. Stanek’s communication seminars.

8.1 What Makes a Good Seller

The selling business has been undergoing profound changes in the last 50 years.

After the Second World War goods were very rare in Europe. Consequently, quick

and easy selling was nearly guaranteed. At this time, the customers were hardly

critical, competition was not very harsh and changes did not occur as rapidly as

today. However, the markets soon started to saturate, and customers were no longer

willing to buy everything. A new type of seller was demanded, a seller whose prime

orientation was to boost sales and turnover, irrespective of customers' needs and

demands. Clients' disappointment and anger about being sold products and services

they did not need or did not meet their expectations created a very bad image of

sellers. This phase lasted approximately until the seventies. Since this time, a new

kind of seller is in its development (Deelen 1996: 15ff). A seller who is only

interested in his/her own commissions or only works under pressure from above to


91

meet targets will no longer be successful. Clients no longer want to be persuaded that

they need something, they are very well able to decide for themselves about their

needs. What they do need, however, is accurate and professional information (Hurst

1996: 155ff). Very rarely do clients need only one product today, much more often

they demand solutions for complex problems, and they want to find these solutions

together with the selling person (Gronwald 1999: 138). In this context, it is easy to

discover the problems in today's selling culture. Mr. Stanek says that many sellers

pursue their own aims too eagerly and neglect their customers' needs and

requirements. A lack of active listening and weak or too little questioning and

analysing often lead to misunderstandings and different interpretations. In fact,

customer and seller often talk at cross purposes. Consequently, a profound

knowledge of communication techniques and empathy is a prerequisite for every

successful seller. In the interview Mr. Stanek stated several criteria a good seller

needs to have. Firstly, he/she must like people and be able to adjust quickly to

different situations. A good seller must know which behaviour is adequate at the

very moment. Secondly, he/she needs to be convinced about the products he/she

sells. It will not work, if the seller himself/herself has doubts about the product, as

the clients will certainly feel this uncertainty. Thirdly, mission and attitude are

important as well. A seller should see himself/herself as consultant or companion

rather than as a seller, meant as somebody who tries to push up his/her sales quotes

irrespective of customers’ needs. Consequently, a long-term client-seller relationship

should be more important than short-term sales figures.

In Mr. Stanek's view, NLP facilitates to adjust quickly to different personalities and

situations. NLP in its tolerance towards other people helps sellers who deal with this

kind of technique to accept that their customers may have different views and

different opinions (Stanek, personal interview, April 5, 2000). The following section

tries to give clearer insight in Mr. Stanek's training methods and is supported by

corresponding literature.

8.2 NLP – Methods and Exercises in Communication (Training)

The course design in Mr. Stanek's seminars is individually suited to the very group.

Therefore, it is not possible to describe a certain sequence of exercises or tasks. Mr.


92

Stanek likes to work with “surprise-effects“. For example, at the beginning of a

seminar when the participants introduce themselves, trainees are required to

memorise the first name and surname of the other participants. Everybody expects an

exercise repeating the names to be the next step. Here, Mr. Stanek surprises his

trainees by doing something completely different. Only at a later stage, trainees are

asked to recall the names of all the others. According to Mr. Stanek the effect is that

trainees receive a positive feeling of “I can do that“ and thus are strengthened in their

self-confidence.

• Rapport, Pacing & Leading

Furthermore, a long enough warming-up phase is also very important for a

communication training. Mr. Stanek reports that this phase of getting to know

each other and establishing rapport often lasts up to half a day in a two days

seminar. It does not make sense to “attack“ trainees immediately with a video

training. A trainer needs to strive for transparency, because trainees need to know

what they will be confronted with in the training. Fear and uncertainty must be

taken away from trainees. It is important that the trainer creates an atmosphere

where mistakes are allowed and that he / she excites the participants' curiosity.

The exercises in the warming-up phase vary depending on the group's openness

and flexibility. Sometimes, Mr. Stanek lets the group “dance“ into a good

morning and seminar start to establish a comfortable atmosphere.

Especially for human beings working in the selling business the ability of

establishing good and stable rapport is a prerequisite. Too often sellers rely on

their clients concerning building up good contact. However, this will only work

if the customers depend on the seller's offer. Today, the situation is the other way

round in most cases, and therefore it is the seller's task to establish good rapport

(Schott 1996: 25).

In today's modern business world new media like mobile phones and e-mail

often replace personal conversations between customers and sellers. Upon the

author's question whether it is possible to establish rapport with these media as

well Mr. Stanek answered that the telephone definitely allows building up good

contact. The seller can adapt his voice in loudness and tonality, he / she can pick


93

up the customer's choice of words, and thus pace and lead the conversation

partner. Rapport via e-mail is rather difficult in Mr. Stanek's opinion, as the style

of language is very short and precise. Eventually, taking over the same concise

style may create rapport. It is, however, much more difficult than creating

rapport in letters, for example.

Sales people often have to cope with the problem that rapport suddenly breaks

up. Mr. Stanek mentioned in the interview that it is not possible to give any rules

how to re-establish rapport again. The seller must, however, ask himself / herself

what the reason for the rapport break-up was, which can be various, and then act

accordingly (Stanek, personal interview, April 5, 2000). In his book “NLP - Die

letzten Geheimnisse der Starverkäufer“ Alfred Bierach gives several examples of

rapport-killers: Minimising or making fun of the client's problem, criticising or

evaluating the customer or pacing bad habits. These behaviours make it

impossible to build up trust and understanding what rapport is all about (Bierach

1990: 76 ff).

• VAK in communication training & selling

Mr. Stanek has made the experience that in most cases the preferred

representational system of trainees cannot be filtered clearly enough in the

training. Therefore, in his training sessions nearly everything is visualised and

intensified by exercises. Consequently, all three modalities are addressed with

the same intensity. Among the media he uses and exercises he applies are group

work, role plays, educational conversations, videos and educational films,

flipchart, overhead, video beamer etc. With its VAK technique NLP is perfectly

suitable for a learner-centred approach to teaching, as it addresses the individual.

Everybody has one's own talents and abilities, and it is the trainer's task to make

the trainee aware of his / her abilities and develop them.

This process can only take place when trainer and trainee are on the same level.

An accompanying approach is needed. It will not work if there is a hierarchy of

superior and subordinate between trainer and trainee (Stanek, personal interview,

April 5, 2000). For people in the sales business it is useful to address their

customers' representational system for example with pictures or brochures


94

(visual), with samples or models (kinaesthetic) or by telling stories and giving

information about the product (auditory). It is, of course, also possible to pick up

the customer's modality in his / her choice of words (Bandler 1995: 73 ff).

• Metaphors:

Mr. Stanek is highly in favour of using metaphors. Concerning selling, he

advises the use of as many metaphors as possible from the client's area of

business. Speaking “the same language“ results in better rapport, and as a

consequence the factual level becomes more effective and productive as well.

• Anchoring

Relaxing and activation exercises are part of every seminar in Mr. Stanek's

courses. He tries to anchor these good emotional states of his trainees.

• Modelling

NLP's technique of modelling is easily applied in a communication training. Mr.

Stanek reports that video training automatically induces modelling. Participants

can see what the other trainees do well and model this behaviour. They

instinctively try out new things and incorporate good techniques they see from

other trainees.

• Future Pacing

Mr. Stanek applies future pacing in connection with the formulation of aims.

Trainees are requested to ask themselves how they feel when they have reached a

certain goal. Triggering this positive feeling creates higher motivation in most

cases. Consequently, future pacing can also be applied in time management, as

high motivation usually leads to a more efficient working pace (Stanek, personal

interview, April 5, 2000).

• Meta Model of Language

Concerning the meta model of language Mr. Stanek is not very familiar with its

use. In the interview, however, he stated that he can very well imagine its

application in the selling business. Especially, discovering generalisations,


95

making comparisons and asking the customer for details seems to be well

applicable for him (Stanek, personal interview, April 5, 2000). Successful sales

people have the ability to ask the right questions to eliminate unclarity in the

customer's style of language concerning generalisations, deletions and distortions

(see Section 4.3.6). The following examples give clearer insight into the

precision probing technique:

Customer's statement Precision Probing

“Your competitor’s product is better.“ Which competitor do you mean?

Which product do you mean?

“Sellers are very insistent.“ Can you remember a sales person

who was not insistent?

Really all sellers?

“I am waiting for the best offer.“ The best offer compared to what?

“I would like something different.“ Different compared to what?

Figure 28: Precision Probing (Bandler 1996: 105ff)

• Reframing

NLP offers a huge variety of techniques and methods. This variety makes it

possible for any trainer to pick up the techniques which suit him / her most, and

as NLP is very individual it does not claim that every trainer has to make use of

all techniques. Reframing, for example, does not fit into Mr. Stanek's personal

repertoire. He can, however, imagine the use of the “yes, and...“-technique

instead of the “yes, but...“-phrase the author referred to in the interview, which is

suggested in Richard Bandler's and Paul Donner's book “Die Schatztruhe - NLP

im Verkauf“ as a solution to cope with objections made by the customer (Stanek,

personal interview, April 5, 2000). Bandler and Donner claim that agreement

frames reinforce rapport, whereas the use of the word “but“ destroys it. If the

seller says “I understand what you mean, but...“ he / she communicates that he /

she actually does not understand what the customer means and creates objection.

Consequently, sellers should replace the use of words like “but, nevertheless,

although“ by connecting words like “and, because, as“, etc. (Bandler 1995: 129


96

ff). In the second part of their book Bandler and Donner present a script with

different selling situations and suggest solution patterns. In the interview Mr.

Stanek stated that he himself thinks little about solution patterns, but that these

patterns facilitate the selling of the book, as many persons expect concrete tips

and solutions (Stanek, personal interview, April 5, 2000).

• Different Perspectives:

Upon the author's question whether he applies any other NLP techniques in his

training, Mr. Stanek mentioned the model of the three positions. A powerful

possibility to promote flexible thinking is to take different positions. NLP lists

three positions, i.e. three possibilities to look at any conversation. The first

position is the individual's own reality, what the individual thinks due to his / her

experience. The second position is the reality of another person in the same

situation. Finally, the third perspective, the “meta perspective“, is the position to

look at relationships from outside (Stanek, personal interview, April 5, 2000).

For example, a trainee asks the trainer a question. For the trainer being in the first

position the answer is so clear that the trainer asks himself / herself why the

participant asks such a question. In this case, it is helpful for the trainer to be able

to look at the problem from the trainee's point of view. He / she will notice that a

certain aspect of the explanation did not reach the trainee, thus he / she answers

the question. From the third perspective, the meta position, the trainer can then

see if the trainee is now content with the reply (O'Connor 1996: 52f). This model

can be extremely helpful in the selling business, as the seller can take the

customer's position and see what is not clear to him / her. As a result, better

understanding is guaranteed and rapport is strengthened.


The following paragraphs concentrate on the presentation of the results that could be

obtained from the quantitative study in Mr. Stanek’s seminar “Communication”,

which is a seminar teaching the basics of communication for employees of the Upper

Austrian Raiffeisen Banking Group. The seminar does not only address employees

who have constant contact with clients, but actually all employees, because good


97

communication is a prerequisite for everyone who works in a team or deals with

other people. Mr. Stanek’s seminar groups are very small, there are fourteen persons

as a maximum in a course. For the author’s case study, the questionnaire was

distributed to a seminar group which counted eight people. Among this group, four

persons were between 18 and 30 years old, and another four persons between 31 and

40 years. The proportion of sex was equally divided, 50 per cent female and 50 per

cent male. Concerning their occupation, a full 100 per cent were employees of the

Raiffeisen Banking Group in Upper Austria.

The data which could be obtained from the questionnaire are as follows:


Figure 29: Quality of Seminar

The chart shown above says it all: 100 per cent judged the seminar to be very good,

which is indeed a very good rating for the trainer.


A clear majority of 63 per cent liked the good and relaxed atmosphere in the course,

which can be interpreted as a sign of good rapport among the group members and the

trainer. Another 38 per cent appreciated the exchange of work experience, the

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examples and their closeness to reality. 25 per cent of the trainees liked the variety of

the course design and the open communication which was possible throughout the

seminar. The trainer’s flexibility, knowledge acquisition and the positive aspects also

for private life were mentioned by another 13 per cent of the trainees. There was

only one negative point mentioned by 13 per cent of the group, i.e. one group

member: the use of the video camera. The trainee reported that its use is not realistic.

The answer did not give any hint whether the trainee had had any negative

experiences with this kind of media and, consequently, showed a feeling of fear, but

it indicated that the person obviously has some rejections about being filmed with

the camera.



The diagram gives a very clear impression of Mr. Stanek’s individual and learner-

centred training. A vast majority of 75 per cent felt very well addressed as individual

participants, 25 per cent judged the individuality to be good. One of the factors that

may have contributed to this result is the fact that Mr. Stanek's seminar groups are

very small, which makes it, of course, easier to address trainees individually than, for

example, in a lecture at university.

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Like in Ms. Aricò’s Italian course, the answer of Mr. Stanek’s group upon the

question of awareness which technique was used in the seminar is a clear “no”.

62,5 per cent of Mr. Stanek’s participants were not aware of the technique he

applies, and 12,5 per cent did not give an answer at all. However, one quarter of his

trainees found NLP as the correct answer, which is an increase by 19 per cent

compared to Ms. Aricò’s course where only six per cent responded with NLP. In the

trainees’ description of technique some elements relating to NLP were found like

addressing the participants’ various sensory stimuli and the individuality of the

course.

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1 2 3 4 5

interesting 87,5% 12,5% 0,0% 0,0% 0,0% boring

varied 62,5% 37,5% 0,0% 0,0% 0,0% one-sided

professional 75,0% 25,0% 0,0% 0,0% 0,0% childish

useful 87,5% 12,5% 0,0% 0,0% 0,0% useless

individual 25,0% 50,0% 25,0% 0,0% 0,0% global

learner-centred 37,5% 50,0% 12,5% 0,0% 0,0% teacher-centred

flexible 50,0% 50,0% 0,0% 0,0% 0,0% rigid


In the table shown above the author marked the highest percentage figures to

facilitate the chart reading. The positive image of the communication seminar is

beyond doubt. It can be seen clearly that the majority graded Mr. Stanek’s course

with a “one” in five of seven cases. His seminar is very interesting, varied,

professional, useful and flexible. Concerning the individual and learner-centred

approach 50 per cent voted for “two”. The neutral phase, “three”, was only marked

twice: in the “individual – global” and in the “learner-centred – teacher-centred” pair

of terms.


overhead slides videos, films flipchart

filming with video-camera penboard cards

listening to music blackboard handouts

games with motion group/pair work role playing

discussion posters story telling

listening to texts

Figure 33: Recognised Media in Mr. Stanek’s Course


101

Compared to the answers of Ms. Aricò’s group, the answers to this question of Mr.

Stanek’s trainees are much more homogenous. A full 100 per cent noticed the media

videos and films, flipchart, recording with video camera, penboard, cards, listening

to music, games with motion and group/pair work. Still 87 per cent marked role

playing as being used in the seminar, 75 per cent noticed discussion and 50 per cent

each could remember overhead slides, handouts and story telling. It has to be noticed

that one trainee did not give any answer to whether the very media were used too

much or too little. The majority was very content with the media and exercises. Only

one trainee in each case found the recording with the video camera (compare to

Question 2), listening to music and role playing too much. On the other hand, one

participant in each case wanted more use of the flipchart, listening to music more

often, more games with motion, more group and pair work and more discussion.


Criteria %

trainer's positive aura 13%

not rigid, but flexible 38%

seating plan (semicircle) 13%

no pressure to succeed 13%

involvement of trainees, no frontal presentation 13%

open course, working together 13%

the person is most important, not a topic 25%


Figure 32 lists the answers that were given to this openly formulated question. The

highest percentages of 38 per cent and 25 per cent refer to the trainer’s flexibility and

to the fact that the person as individual is most important and not a specific topic like

in other banking seminars. The other points mentioned by 13 per cent each case

mention the trainer’s positive aura, sitting in a semicircle and not in rows like at


102

school, the openness in the course and the trainees’ involvement and that there is no

pressure to succeed.




A vast majority of 87,5 per cent feel that they have acquired competencies and

abilities to be useful for their further profession. The rest of the group voted for

partly; noone felt that he / she did not acquire any new skills. Among the

competencies mentioned by Mr. Stanek’s trainees were the ability to listen actively,

to express oneself clearer and to adjust to a conversation partner in a better way. 13

per cent also reported that they had learned how to reduce tensions in a conversation

and that they had become aware of what can go wrong in a conversation and how

these situations can be handled in a better way.

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yes partly no


103


into practice?


As the diagram demonstrated above shows, all of Mr. Stanek’s trainees feel very

good or good when they think about putting the acquired competencies into practice.

This is probably the best grade a trainer can get, as he / she has reached the goal of

enabling students to make use of what they have learned in the seminar.


you in the following situation?

yes maybe no n.r.

Language learning 12,5% 62,5% 25,0% 0%

Communication 100,0% 0,0% 0,0% 0%

Selling 87,5% 12,5% 0,0% 0%

Content learning 50,0% 37,5% 12,5% 0%

Preparing for exams 25,0% 50,0% 25,0% 0%


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From the numbers in Figure 37 it can be assumed that the seminar-technique has

reached its purpose. A full 100 per cent of the participants feel that it helped them in

the matter of communication, and a high majority of 87,5 per cent found it useful for

selling. Even the technique’s usefulness for content learning was agreed to by half of

the participants. In this case, the situations of language learning and preparing for

exams reflect uncertainty. In both cases, the majority could not decide between yes

and no, probably because it is not relevant for their situation. A quarter of the

trainees rejected it, whereas 12,5 per cent were convinced that such a seminar could

also help them in their language learning and in preparing for exams. Like in Ms.

Aricò’s case study, Mr. Stanek’s trainees also gave additional information. 25 per

cent reported that they had derived a very personal benefit for private and family life,

especially in dealing with children.



The diagram in Figure 36 gives a positive image about the emotional state of Mr.

Stanek’s learners. The importance Mr. Stanek himself puts on a relaxed and friendly

atmosphere is clearly reflected by his seminar participants. All of them had a positive

13%

25%

25%

38%

63%

100%

100%

88%

50%

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under stress

tense

concentrated

relaxed

receptive

tired

motivated

positive attitude

indifferent

expectant

negative attitude

passive

eager to learn

Percentage


105

attitude towards the course and felt motivated. 88 per cent were expectant about the

course, 63 per cent felt receptive and half of the trainees were eager to learn. The

involvement of learners is confirmed by the fact that no trainee at all marked the

possibilities of “passive”, “indifferent” and “negative attitude”. However, compared

to Ms. Aricò’s course, the number of relaxed people is 10 per cent lower and counts

38 per cent. Furthermore, it can be noticed that 25 per cent of the trainees felt tense

and 13 per cent under stress. The latter figure, which equals one person in Mr.

Stanek’s course, may be identical with the trainee who did not like the recording

with the video camera, which may have created a feeling of stress.


think you are?


Only 12,5 per cent of Mr. Stanek’s trainees think they are mainly visual, a quarter

considers themselves to be kinaesthetic learner types, and one learner did not know.

Like in Ms. Aricò’s course, the highest percentage figure can be found at the

“mixture” criteria. The 50 per cent who marked this point believed that they learn

mainly in the visual and auditory modality.

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106


success?


Like in Ms. Aricò’s seminar, the majority of Mr. Stanek’s trainees also considers a

positive attitude as an important factor for learning success. 12,5 per cent each case,

however, have a neutral position or do not attribute importance to this factor.

Question 14: How would you judge the following beliefs?


1 2 3 4 5 n.r.

useful 37,5% 62,5% 0,0% 0,0% 0,0% 0,0% useless

true 50,0% 37,5% 12,5% 0,0% 0,0% 0,0% false




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107


1 2 3 4 5 n.r.

useful 37,5% 37,5% 0,0% 0,0% 12,5% 12,5% useless

true 50,0% 25,0% 0,0% 12,5% 12,5% 0,0% false





1 2 3 4 5 n.r.

useful 50,0% 12,5% 25,0% 12,5% 0,0% 0,0% useless

true 37,5% 37,5% 0,0% 0,0% 25,0% 0,0% false




Figure 41: Beliefs

Like in the first case study, the author marked the highest percentage figures in the

tables shown above. Compared to the answers that were given in Ms. Aricò’s course,

Mr. Stanek’s trainees show less uncertainty concerning the beliefs they were

confronted with. Concerning the joy of learning, the highest percentage figures can

be found at the grades “one” and “two” only, and there are no “fours” and “fives”.

The second belief, “There is no failure, only feedback”, seems to appeal very much

to Mr. Stanek’s seminar participants and reflects clearly his personal attitude to open

communciation and a “safe” learning environment. With the third belief, “Each

behaviour has a positive intention”, the spread of the highest percentages is a little

wider, but nevertheless the answers reflect a very positive attitude to this belief,

much more than in Ms. Aricò’s group, where the neutral position leads.


108


important relevant not very

important

not important

at all

n.r.

responsibility for own learning success 87,5% 12,5% 0,0% 0,0% 0,0%

decide oneself about time and place of learning 37,5% 37,5% 12,5% 0,0% 12,5%

select media oneself 37,5% 50,0% 12,5% 0,0% 0,0%

my interests should be met in the training 0,0% 75,0% 12,5% 0,0% 12,5%

possibility to give input in training 25,0% 25,0% 37,5% 0,0% 0,0%

nice and likeable trainer 75,0% 12,5% 0,0% 0,0% 12,5%

humour, joy and fun in the training 75,0% 25,0% 0,0% 0,0% 0,0%

flexibility of trainer 62,5% 37,5% 0,0% 0,0% 0,0%

rigid, good organised training programme 0,0% 37,5% 50,0% 0,0% 12,5%

have clear learning goals 50,0% 37,5% 0,0% 0,0% 12,5%


The pattern of the highest percentage figures of Ms. Aricò’s students and Mr.

Stanek’s trainees is very much alike. Responsibility for one’s own learning success

and autonomy concerning time, location and the selection of media as well as good

rapport in the training and flexibility rank among the most important factors for

learning. A rigid, good organised training programme is not very important for 50

per cent of the participants. The spread among the point “possibility to give input in

training”, however, is eyecatching. A quarter each considers this point to be very

important or at least relevant. For 38 per cent of Mr. Stanek’s trainees, however, it is

not very important. The reasons for this high figure can only be guessed, the trainees

did not give any further explanations for their decisions.


109



The results of this question of Mr. Stanek’s students are nearly the same than the

ones of Ms. Aricò’s students. 87,5 per cent know what NLP stands for, only one

trainee gave his/her choice to Natural Linguistic Processes. From these results it can

be assumed that Mr. Stanek’s training technique is familiar to his participants.

12,5%

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Neuro Lipo Pigment


no response

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110

9 NLP and Content Learning

“Lernen ist wie Rudern gegen den Strom, wer aufhört, treibt zurück.“ (Britten, B. as cited in Duden - Reden gut und richtig halten: 1994: 559).

Preceding chapters of this thesis have already mentioned that we live in a fast

moving world. Research in every field, technological progress, information

dissemination in the Internet's data-highway occur faster and faster, and noone who

wants to keep up in business can permit himself/herself to stay behind. As a

consequence, abilities how to cope with this huge amount of information have

reached a high status in the business world, also among sales people in particular, as

they are at the front dealing with the customer and need to know any details and new

developments concerning the product, their company, or their industry. Students as

well are confronted with many more information sources in their studies than they

used to be a decade ago. The following case study is based upon an interview

conducted with Professor Dr. Walter Ötsch, who teaches economics at the Johannes

Kepler University. It intends to demonstrate possible approaches for students and

anyone who has to fight his/her way through the information jungle how to prepare

for and how to cope with performance anxiety, which is often connected to exams

and presentations.

9.1 What Makes Content Learning Difficult

The interview started off with the author's question about what makes content

learning sometimes so difficult for students. In the specific case of microeconomics

Professor Ötsch stated that economics is very formal. Economics contains many

models and in most cases it cannot be combined with any knowledge taught at an

earlier stage of education. Consequently, the gap between theory and practice is very

big, the trainer usually cannot take for granted that students at the beginning of their

university studies already have acquired basic knowledge of economics.


111

Furthermore, a sound knowledge of mathematics is needed to understand economics.

This is, however, often a problem. In the beginning of this thesis the author stated

that when children leave school they have often learned to hate learning. Professor

Ötsch remarked in the interview that it is the same case with mathematics. Only

when they hear the word “maths“ many students' hair stand on end. Traditional

schooling spoiled their joy of dealing with mathematical models. Therefore,

Professor Ötsch considers it of utmost importance to gain control of this horror-

scenario.

In this connection it is also significant to be able to deal with performance anxiety.

There are three types of performance:

“the one you prepared, the one you gave, and the one you

wished you had given. The first and third may be roughly

similar - if only the middle one matched as well!“

(http://www.lambent.com/article.htm).

Fear of exams, being tested and being in the spotlight often create butterflies in one's

stomach. The fear of failing is always present and overburdens the human body,

which reacts with unease, chills, and blocks to creativity and humour. Negative

stress, nervous feelings and negative internal dialogues consume a great deal of

students' energy, and leave only little power for the imminent performance. The

emotional state when one performs, however, has the greatest influence on success.

Consequently, it can be very useful for students to learn how to befriend their inner

critic and how to change anxiety into joy and challenge (Schott 1994: 7f and

http://www.lament.com/article.htm).

9.2 NLP – Methods and Exercises for Content Learning

The further course of the interview concentrated on the possibilities how the

problems in connection with content learning mentioned above can be solved with

the help of NLP.


112

• Representation and Development of Joy

Professor Ötsch stated that it is, first of all, important to establish a personal

relationship to the content. At school, interest and relation were united in the

personality of the teacher. At university, this is different. Students need to

become aware that they themselves and their personal learning success are

concerned and need to develop their own access to the content. The second step

would be, for example in economics, to represent the formal models. These

models need to be worked up in a suitable manner, visualising them, for instance,

and practising this visualisation process. The third step would then be to develop

interest and joy. In this connection, Professor Ötsch referred to NLP's concept of

excellence. The trainer should create an atmosphere to enable students to

understand their individual excellence. Students should research and discover in

themselves how they do the things they do well in such an excellent manner.

They need to become aware of these patterns and then project them to the content

they need to study or to the exam they are preparing for. Professor Ötsch

mentioned hobbies as an example. In their hobbies, human beings are able to

learn very much in a short time and to proceed quickly. They simply devour

books dealing with their hobby and memorise this content easily. According to

Professor Ötsch, finding out how one is able to perform to excellence will be one

of the most important abilities in future. Students should be able to develop an

internal model how they are able to learn quickly and effic iently, for example,

how to be able to read ten books a week and enjoy it.

Learning is a permanent process. Professor Ötsch also stated that it would also be

possible to ask oneself “What hinders me in my learning? Is it school or the

institution university?“ Today, information is abundant, just thinking about the

medium Internet, it is only necessary to find an access that creates joyful

learning.

• Emotional State - Beliefs and Rapport

As mentioned in the preceding section, a good emotional state is very important

for joyful learning and good performance. Professor Ötsch suggested two

possibilities how to gain control of the horror vision of failing:


113

The first one is to develop an inner simulation process. Students should change

the worst case scenario, which is failing the exam, into a positive one. Therefore

it is necessary to establish new inner beliefs. The inner critic that constantly tells

me “I should“ and “I cannot“ needs to be befriended. A critic can be a good

friend, and a necessary part of the creative process. Consequently, the critic

needs to be reframed. One possibility to do so is to listen for the positive

intentions of one's inner critic and to reformulate negative beliefs. “I should do

well“ becomes “I can do well“ and “I must not make this mistake”, becomes “I

will not make this mistake.“

Secondly, according to Professor Ötsch non-verbal contacts with one's examiner

play an important role for success as well. Social competence is important,

because the examiner also evaluates the quality of the social relationship, which

may affect the mark the student gets by one or two grades. Therefore,

establishing good rapport is very useful for examinees.

Furthermore, Professor Ötsch cares very much about the emotional state of his

students in the lecture. In his opinion, the trainer has two roles. Firstly, he/she

defines the social situation, and secondly, he/she is a coach, a mentor to

encourage students to learn. The latter function is very important in Professor

Ötsch's view, because it is much easier to learn if one feels well. In this context,

however, he criticises the university as a very hierarchical institution. He stated

that university is very authoritarian, in particular in the German speaking world.

This construction makes students appear authoritarian as well, because they act

very little. Consequently, it should be a trainer's prime intention to encourage

students to contribute more input in the training and to take them out of their

passiveness.

• Reframing

Professor Ötsch stressed the significance of students' attitudes towards an exam.

He mentioned that probably the expression “exam“ or “Prüfung“ in itself is

wrong, as it immediately creates a negative anchor and triggers stressful feelings.

Professor Ötsch supports a change from “exam“ to “feedback“. In this sense,


114

reframing takes place, because the “exam“ receives a different context. Professor

Ötsch advises students to see exams with the attitude of a sportsmanship. The

worst attitude in his opinion is to combine the exam with one's identity, like

“There is so much to learn, it is so difficult, and I am too stupid to learn it.“

• VAK in content learning:

Concerning media, Professor Ötsch mainly uses overhead slides. He himself is

very strongly visually oriented, and this is also reflected in his teaching. He

stated that some good simulation programmes would be available, but he does

not use them in his teaching. In Professor Ötsch's view, visual and auditory

learner types are well addressed at university, kinaesthetic learners, however, are

strongly neglected. Again, he considers the university in its hierarchical

construction to be the cause, but he does not break through these limitations.


To provide a congruent methodology a quantitative study was executed in one of

Professor Ötsch’s courses as well. The questionnaire was distributed in the lecture

“Microeconomics”, which is part of the curriculum students of “Ecnomics” have to

go through. 20 students in the first part of their degree were questioned, and a full

100 per cent of them were between 18 and 30 years old. Concerning sex, 40 per cent

of the sample were female, 60 per cent male. The majority, i.e. 80 per cent, of

Professor Ötsch’s trainees were full-time students at the Johannes Kepler University,

only 20 per cent were part-time students.

After having presented the results from Ms. Aricò’s and Mr. Stanek’s group, the

following paragraphs finally show the analysis of Professor Ötsch’s students of

microeconomics.


115


Figure 44: Quality of Lecture

Concerning the quality of Professor Ötsch's lecture his students give very positive

feedback about his teaching. 70 per cent of his trainees judged the lecture to be very

good, a quarter found it good, and only 5 per cent gave average grades to the

microeconomics lecture.


35 per cent of Professor Ötsch's students valued the open teaching he pursues and

that he looks for dialogue with his students. Some students even referred to an

atmosphere where students are allowed to make mistakes and are not supposed to be

perfect already at the beginning of the course. They also gave positive feedback

concerning the good and exact explanations Professor Ötsch gives, and even 30 per

cent explicitly liked his overhead-slides and how he visualises processes. Another 15

per cent of the trainees judged very positively that Professor Ötsch treats problems

from different perspectives and offers several approaches how to solve the very

problem. Consequently, it is possible for each individual student to find his / her

preferred access to the problem. In this case, Professor Ötsch's students reported

exactly what he stated in the interview to facilitate content learning, i.e. that students

need to find a personal access or relation to the content to study.

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Among the criteria that came-up in the section “what I did not like“, 15 per cent

reported that the pace in the lecture was too quick. Another five per cent each case

did not like the request for feedback and claimed that the lecture does not have

enough structure.



Like Ms. Aricò's and Mr. Stanek's trainees, Professor Ötsch's students also give

positive feedback concerning individuality. 55 per cent felt very well addressed as

individual participants, the rest of 45 per cent judged the individuality to be good.

This result is remarkable in that way that Professor Ötsch's course was a lecture,

which traditionally is very global and teacher-centred at university compared to a

seminar.

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The answers of Professor Ötsch's students about the awareness of the technique

applied differentiate a little from those of Ms. Aricò's or Mr. Stanek's trainees. 40 per

cent reported they were not aware of the technique, and 15 per cent did not give an

answer at all. 45 per cent, however, believed in their awareness, but did not mention

NLP. Nevertheless, in their description several criteria come very close to NLP's

principles, for example visualisation and explaining contexts with pictures, inviting

students to participate actively, addressing students individually, working on

problems together in an interactive manner and Professor Ötsch's flexibility.

Compared to Ms. Aricò's and Mr. Stanek's students, however, noone mentioned NLP

explicitly.

0,0%

20,0%

40,0%

60,0%

80,0%P

erce

nta

ge

O 0,0% 45,0% 40,0% 15,0%


no no response


118


1 2 3 4 5

interesting 35% 50% 5% 10% 0% boring

varied 5% 60% 25% 10% 0% one-sided

professional 25% 45% 30% 0% 0% childish

useful 25% 30% 35% 10% 0% useless

individual 10% 35% 45% 10% 0% global

learner-centred 50% 25% 20% 5% 0% teacher-centred

flexible 30% 40% 25% 0% 5% rigid


Like in the case studies before, the highest percentage figure of each term-pair is

marked. It can be seen that the grades are quite good, especially the learner-centred

approach is eyecatching. The neutral positions at the “useful - useless“ and

“individual - global“ criteria may be explained by the difficulty of learning

economics Professor Ötsch referred to in the interview, i.e. the gap to practice due to

its formality and the fact that students have only little basic knowledge of economics

when they begin their university degree.


overhead-slides blackboard handouts

group-/pair-work individual work discussion

colours story telling

Figure 48: Recognised Media in Prof. Ötsch’s Lecture

The answers given to this question reflect clearly what Professor Ötsch stated in the

interview, i.e. that he is very visually oriented and designs his lectures and courses

accordingly. A full 100 per cent of his students were aware of his overhead-slides

and liked their use, which was already mentioned in the analysis of Question 2.


119

Furthermore, Professor Ötsch's students noticed the use of the blackboard, handouts,

group- and pair-work as well as individual work, discussion and the use of colours.

Four students referred to another technique to the use of which Professor Ötsch did

not refer to: story telling. From the detailed numbers in the appendix it can be seen

that most students are content with the use of media, some, however, would have

liked the use of videos, the flipchart, cards, songs and music, role-playing, computer

games and CD-ROMS, or more story-telling. One can draw the conclusion that

mainly the kinaesthetic and auditory learners are speaking in these answers.


Criteria %

no difference to other lectures 5%

students' contributions are welcome and requested 30%

practical examples 5%

student-centred, eye-contact, conversation with students 15%

understandable 15%

interesting, motivating 5%

course design 5%

lively and varied 5%

personality of teacher 5%

no response 25%


A quite high number, 25 per cent, did not give an answer to this question, which

makes the author question herself, whether the question was not formulated clearly

enough. 30 per cent, however, mentioned that the trainer welcomes students'

contributions. Another 15 per cent wrote that the course is very student-centred, that

the trainer keeps eye-contact with the participants and that in comparison to other

courses Professor Ötsch's lecture is very understandable. Five per cent in each case

valued the practical examples, the interesting and motivating course design and the

personality of the teacher. Only five per cent did not find any difference to other

courses at university.


120




Compared to the answers of Ms. Aricò's and Mr. Stanek's students more uncertainty

concerning the acquisition of important competencies can be noticed among

Professor Ötsch's students. 55 per cent marked “yes“, whereas 45 per cent decided

for “partly“. The reason for the increased equality of this distribution may again lie

in economics' formality and in the gap to practice. Among the acquired competencies

that were mentioned by trainees were the visualisation of processes, economic and

analytical thinking and knowledge and the ability how to transfer knowledge to

colleagues.


into practice?


0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

Pe

rce

nta

ge

O 55% 45% 0%

yes partly no

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

Per

cen

tag

e

O 10% 75% 10% 5%



121

A clear majority, i.e. three quarters, of Professor Ötsch's students feel good about

putting the acquired competencies into practice. The feelings “very good“ and

“average“ balance each other with ten per cent. Only five per cent have severe

doubts about applying what they have learned in practice.



yes maybe no n.r.

Language learning 10% 10% 65% 15%

Communication 25% 30% 30% 15%

Selling 25% 30% 30% 15%

Content learning 70% 20% 10% 0%

Preparing for exams 70% 25% 5% 0%


The results of this question are remarkable in the following way. A clear majority of

65 per cent rejected the course design's use for language learning, and 60 per cent

each case found it doubtful or useless for communication and selling. The reasons

for these answers would be worth further investigation, for example whether these

students have already attended any language classes at university. The author herself

tried to find out more about the background by examining the course of study for

economics. The results of this question are even more surprising, as she found out

that one foreign language to the extent of eight hours is a compulsory component of

the first part of the economics degree, including communication training, language

training for specific purposes, case-studies and a lecture about foreign culture. The

foreign language, which can either be English, French, Spanish, Russian or Italian is

ranked as a “Vorprüfung“ in the first diploma exam (http://sowi.oeh.uni-

linz.ac.at./plans/140.htm). A clear agreement by 70 per cent, however, is given to the

technique's usefulness for content learning and for the preparation for exams, which

gives evidence that Professor Ötsch's lecture has reached its purpose.


122



An overwhelming majority of 95 per cent showed a positive attitude towards the

lecture. In fact, Professor Ötsch's course must have been very captivating, as 70 per

cent felt receptive, 45 per cent were eager to learn and concentrated, 35 per cent

relaxed and motivated. Only five and ten per cent had indifferent or tense feelings or

felt tired. Nobody had a negative attitude or felt under stress, which indicates that the

course must have taken place in a relaxed and harmonious atmosphere.

5%

45%

35%

70%

10%

35%

95%

5%

20%

15%

45%

0%

0%

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%

under stress

tense

concentrated

relaxed

receptive

tired

motivated

positive attitude

indifferent

expectant

negative attitude

passive

eager to learn

Percentage


123


think you are?


Figure 54 clearly reflects Professor Ötsch's teaching style, as 30 per cent of his

students think that they are primarily visually oriented. 70 per cent, however, are

convinced that they cannot definitely say which learner type they are. The mixture

presents itself as follows:

Figure 55: Mixed Learner-types Distribution

The highest figure of 45 per cent in the diagram shown above corresponds to the

answers of Ms. Aricò's and Mr. Stanek's students who also responded that their

preferred modalities are visual and auditory. However, the number of Professor

Ötsch's students who are visually and kinaesthetically oriented counts for 20 per

cent, and is more than twice as high than in Ms. Aricò's course, for example.

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

Per

cen

tag

e

O 0% 30% 0% 70% 0%


0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

Per

cen

tag

e

O 45% 20% 5%

vis+aud vis+kin vis+aud+kin


124


success?


The results of this question are very similar to the ones in Ms. Aricò's and Mr.

Stanek's courses. 85 per cent of Professor Ötsch's students think that a positive

attitude is very important for their personal learning success. Only 10 per cent

consider it to be neutral, and only five per cent attribute little significance to this

factor.

Question 14: How would you judge the following beliefs?


1 2 3 4 5 n.r.

useful 45% 40% 5% 0% 0% 10% useless

true 55% 20% 20% 0% 0% 5% false

practical 25% 35% 25% 5% 0% 10% theoretical

strong effect 40% 40% 15% 0% 0% 5% weak effect

relevant 40% 35% 20% 0% 0% 5% irrelevant

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

Per

cent

age

O 85% 10% 5% 0% 0%

very important

neutralnot very



125


1 2 3 4 5 n.r.

useful 20% 35% 20% 5% 10% 10% useless

true 15% 35% 15% 10% 15% 10% false





1 2 3 4 5 n.r.

useful 5% 25% 40% 10% 10% 10% useless

true 5% 15% 35% 20% 15% 10% false




Figure 57: Beliefs

From the tables in Figure 57 it can be seen that the joy of learning obviously is very

important for Professor Ötsch's students, as the highest percentage figures can be

found at the grades “one“ and “two“, and nobody marked this belief with a five. It

can be noticed, however, that throughout the given beliefs between five and 15 per

cent of Professor Ötsch's students did not give an answer. The second belief, “There

is no failure, only feedback“, was judged positively as well. Students seem to have a

good attitude to this believe, which may result from the fact that Professor Ötsch's

students are allowed to make mistakes, as they already reported in their answers to

Question 2. Concerning the third belief that each behaviour has a positive intention

the pattern of answers is similar to Ms. Aricò's group where the neutral positions

hold the highest percentage figures.


126


very relevant not very not important

important important at all

responsibility for own learning success 85% 15% 0% 0%

decide oneself about time and place of learning 65% 35% 0% 0%

select media oneself 20% 40% 40% 0%

my interests should be met in the training 45% 40% 15% 0%

possibility to give input in training 45% 35% 20% 0%

nice and likeable trainer 35% 40% 25% 0%

humour, joy and fun in the training 40% 55% 5% 0%

flexibility of trainer 45% 40% 15% 0%

rigid, good organised training programme 25% 50% 25% 0%

have clear learning goals 65% 30% 5% 0%


From the answers to this question it can be concluded that Professor Ötsch's

economics students are already very far along on their way to autonomous learning.

85 per cent consider it to be very important to take over responsibility for their own

learning success, and 65 per cent want to decide themselves about time and location

of learning and have clear learning goals. Concerning interests and the possibility to

give input in the training Professor Ötsch's students are in the lead, compared to Ms.

Aricò's and Mr. Stanek's trainees. Humour, joy and fun in the training as well as a

flexible and likeable trainer also rank among relevant criteria for learning. It is

remarkable, however, that for 80 per cent of the questioned trainees the selection of

media is only secondary.


127



The answers to this question are rather differentiated compared to the other two case

studies, where 88 per cent each case gave the correct answer of Neuro Linguistic

Programming and only 12 and 13 per cent marked Natural Linguistic Programming.

Only 45 per cent of Professor Ötsch's students voted for the correct answer, another

20 per cent gave their choice to Natural Linguistic Programming. However, several

students also chose the other possibilities and 15 per cent did not give an answer at

all.

20%

45%

10%

5%

5%

15%

0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%




Neuro Lipo Pigment


no response

Percentage


128

PART III

CONCLUSIONS AND

RECOMMENDATIONS


129

10 Critical Thoughts and Recommendations

Part II of this thesis has presented several possibilities of NLP's application in

training situations and the feedback trainees gave to their trainers in a very detailed

manner.

After having studied these results one can say that the questioned trainees draw a

very positive picture about the courses they attended. Quality and individuality as

well as the practical touch of the seminars are shown in a favourable light.

Furthermore and foremost, the majority of the trainees appreciated the relaxed

atmosphere in the courses, seem to be very well aware of their preferred learning

styles, and have the feeling of having acquired important competencies for their

studies or profession.

It has to be mentioned, however, that teacher preferences also have influence on

trainees. This aspect was reflected at some points in the case studies. Professor

Ötsch, for instance, stated himself that he is primarily visually oriented (Ötsch,

personal interview, May 9, 2000); this preferred modality is reflected in a high figure

of his students, 30 per cent, who also consider themselves to be visual learner types.

Mr. Stanek is another example. His personal preference for a comfortable learning

environment, which was already mentioned in Chapter 6 of this thesis, is reflected by

his trainees who favour the good and relaxed atmosphere in his courses.

Although the majority were not aware that it was NLP that the trainers applied in the

seminars, the techniques appealed to them, which can be concluded from their

answers to the questions what they liked in the seminar and in which way the very

seminar is different from others. From these answers it can be assumed that the

trainers who were interviewed apply NLP techniques in a very sensitive and serious

manner, which is very important indeed, as in the course of studying literature the

author has come across several examples that produce a negative image of NLP. In

addition, all three experts stated in the interviews that NLP has several weaknesses

and that the danger of abuse is certainly given.


130

Mr. Stanek, for example, sees NLP's weaknesses mainly in the transfer of the

concept. In his opinion, if trainers offer an NLP-Master course to be completed in

three weeks, this is not to be taken seriously, but rather to be regarded as dangerous.

Furthermore, there are no requirements to be met for the attendance of an NLP-

Practitioner or an NLP-Master course. Mr. Stanek reported that some trainers believe

they can also work in therapy when they have completed the Master course. This is,

however, very dangerous when it goes into the changing of beliefs. Concerning this

point, Ms. Aricò agrees as well, and warns of a too unconcerned application of NLP,

especially with psychologically weak persons. As already mentioned in Section 7.2

of this thesis, the effects can be quite bad, if a trainer does not know how to deal with

a trainee, if an anchor triggers negative feelings. This critique is also met by

Professor Ötsch. He stated that NLP has a quality problem, as its application is often

uncontrolled. No doubt that NLP offers a variety of pragmatic methods that can

easily be developed further, but according to Professor Ötsch NLP lacks theory, and

its moral optionality is definitely a problem. This leads the author to the problem of

manipulation, which throws negative light on NLP. Some authors describe NLP as

the “turbocar“ for selling and offer it to the reader as an effective instrument of

suggestion to boost one's own selling targets (Bachmann 1999: 54 f).

Furthermore, some authors try to give advice to “megateaching“ with NLP in a way

that lets these techniques appear absurd and grotesque. For instance, they

recommend to use anchoring in a mainly kinaesthetic way by touching trainees to

trigger certain feelings. These authors forget, however, to deal with the problem how

to establish acceptance of students for touching them regularly. Another example is

their suggestion of the individual observation of eye-movement patterns in the

classroom. Apart from the fact that this technique requires a certain amount of

practical experience, the question of how such an individual observation in a regular

classroom with approximately 20 students can be done is left unanswered

(Bachmann 1999: 56f.). The author would like to emphasise that none of her experts

referred to the technique of observing eye-movement patterns in the interview, even

though they were given various opportunities. This is probably an indication that this

technique is not applicable in a training situation where between eight and 30

individuals participate. An empirical study executed by Jens Schiermann also could


131

not prove the correlation between the prime representational system and accessing

cues (Bachmann 1999: 208).

Ms. Aricò claimed in the interview that particularly American literature tries to sell

NLP too much like a recipe. This statement is met by practical examples the author

found while sounding out literature as well as by a critical evaluation of Winfried

Bachmann. Bachmann states that a too literal translation from English into German

and a direct transfer from therapy to pedagogy may create problems. Preliminary, it

is necessary to find out the conditional framework of the various situations to avoid

initially good approaches and ideas being turned into the opposite (Bachmann 1999:

57f). The author would like to mention Bruce King's book, “Psycho-Verkauf“

(“Psycho-Selling“), as a negative example to show how some authors make NLP-

techniques appear ridiculous. This book was translated from English into German by

Annemarie Pumpernig and Stephan Gebauer, and reduces NLP's techniques of

rapport and pacing to “mimicry“. King claims that mimicry directly addresses the

client's subconscious and, consequently, is very effective. He advises the seller to

imitate the customer as quickly and exactly as possible and gives several examples.

For instance, he writes, if the customer has one hand in his/her pocket, the seller is

advised to do the same, if the customer crosses his/her arms, the seller should take

the same position, if the customer plays with his/her ball-point, the seller should also

start to play with it, etc. The list of examples goes on, and King is convinced that the

seller's exact imitation of the client will make the signing of the contract only a

formality (King 1993: 74ff). The strategy as it is described in this book is strictly

rejected by the experts the author interviewed. Mr. Stanek reported that such a

behaviour will provoke the client rather than establish good rapport as a basis for

leading, as he/she will probably feel mimicked or caricatured. Rapport can rather be

compared to dancing, where one partner does not imitate the other one, but adjusts

and follows the movements (Stanek, personal interview, April 5, 2000).

Another point of critique of NLP is that many of its concepts are not new. Rapport,

for example, incorporates all “good rules of communication“ which may already be

known by persons who have never dealt with NLP, just like reframing and using

metaphors are not new either. Giving a situation a “different frame“ and using

analogies was already done years ago, when people told fairy-tales and fables to


132

teach a certain behaviour. One can get the feeling that in NLP “old techniques“

receive a different cloth, which also leads to the constraint that NLP has a lot of

jargon. The positive intention of jargon is to enable communication and to express

complex thoughts in a simple way. The constraint of the technical vocabulary is,

however, that it makes NLP seem distant, academic and hard to understand

(O'Connor 1997).

In this context it might also be interesting to refer to an interpretation of Josef

O'Connor that NLP is trapped by its name which gives its operating metaphor. The

meaning of the components of the term NLP was already explained in the theoretical

part of this thesis. According to O'Connor the term “Programming“ is the one that

creates problems. It is a “mechanistic computer metaphor“, it is called a

“technology“ and sometimes “installation“ is mentioned as well. Drawing out this

mechanical metaphor may lead to a view that excellence comes packaged like a

software programme. Brains, however, are not like computers, because human-

beings are all different, which is, in fact, one of NLP's principles. The mechanical

metaphor of “Programming“ reduces individuals to mechanical models (O'Connor

1997). Metaphors are powerful and shape human-beings' thinking. Therefore, it is of

utmost importance to use them cautiously, which the operating metaphor in the term

NLP shows.

Derived from these constraints it is recommended to apply NLP techniques which

touch the psyche of an individual, i.e. anchoring for instance, only with great

sensitivity. A sound knowledge of its techniques and practical training are also a

prerequisite for a responsible application of NLP. If these conditions are given,

which in the case-study situations was certainly the case, NLP is definitely an

enrichment for any training situation. Its openness and flexibility allow a wide range

of application, and it is important to bear in mind that not every technique suits every

person. Mr. Stanek is a good example. For him, many NLP elements are very

applicable and pragmatic, but some of them do not appeal to him. NLP's repertoire

leaves it to the trainer and learner to pick out the elements they feel comfortable

with. In this way, the learner-centred approach of NLP cannot be denied. What is

needed, however, is an open training culture. It is therefore recommended to try to

break up any hierarchical structures, especially at university, which hinder NLP in its


133

application and to provide for a climate where kinaesthetic learners are served as

well.

Whether the application of NLP in training situations works the same way in other

than the Western European culture, where it was examined, would certainly be worth

further investigation. Concerning the distribution of NLP instruments the author

agrees with a statement made by Professor Ötsch:

“NLP instruments are fantastic. They should be spread and

become commonly used, as these techniques provide valuable

opportunities to stabilise, motivate and encourage oneself and

one's own learning process, which will be very important in

future“ (Ötsch, personal interview, May 9, 2000).


134

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12 Appendix

12.1 Glossary of Terms

12.2 Guide for Interview Questions

12.3 Questionnaire

12.4 Analysis of Questionnaire

12.5 What Type of Learner are You?

NLP Theory and Best Practice

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