SUMMARY - HYPNAGOLOGICAL METHOD

HYPNAGOLOGICAL METHOD FOR ACCELERATIVE LANGUAGE TEACHING/LEARNING.

ENGLISH SUMMARY.



EPIGRAM

“The truth only exists in the individual when he produces it by himself acting”.
Sören Kierkegaard




Chapter 1.
Introduction.
An explanation of the factor that influenced me to start developing the Hypnagological Method in order to accelerate the teaching/learning process of foreign language acquisition for adults.
20 years of active psychopedagogical research and practice have given the result of this scientific method of immersion language courses.

Chapter 2.
Valuations and comments.
The essential purpose of this study is to get conscious of the implications regarding accelerative linguistic learning, concluding that the real symbiotic interaction between learner and instructor is what makes acceleration possible.
The Hypnagological Method intention is to immerse the learner into a constant flow of creativity, combining a logical-rational process together with an emotional affective process, transforming the participant into a constant producer of new sentences in the target language.
I consider the Hypnagological Method as the first attempt to use purposely and deliberately psychotherapeutic tools, as well as pedagogical tools, to deal with language learning for adults.

Chapter 3.
Basic foundations for intensive language courses.
1. Learning nature and principle.
Defining the concept of “adult” in relation to language learning according to the criteria used by L. Selinker, that is, from 12 years old until elderly persons.
Defining also the concept of “participant” used in the Hypnagological Method, and inspired in Carl Rogers idea, instead of the traditional use of pupil, student or even learner. In our case, the concept of “participant”, used through all this book, is perfectly justified because it gives the idea of the active role played by the individual in his/her own learning process.
Defining the concept of “target language” to the language to be learned and taught.
Defining the concept of “instructor” in the Hypnagological Method, instead of the traditional teacher. The “Hypnagological instructor” is defined as a guide, a facilitator, who is helping the participant to develop his/her own internal skills in the target language, and not as the “teacher” with a complete control and authority of the formal instruction.
2. Individual interests.
A review of Throndike’s idea of individual interests is presented.
3. Classical conditioning and its implications.
The contribution of Pavlov to Audiolingualism is summarized.
4. Adjacent Conditioning.
An explanation of E. R. Guthrie’s Adjacent Conditioning is done, taking in consideration that it is a derivation of Thorndike and Pavlov’s theories.
Guthrie’s concepts of anticipation and preparation are perhaps the beginning of a new approach to language learning. Even though he continued with his behavioristic point of view.
5. Intentional behaviorism.
A summary of E. Tolman idea concerning the exploration of the situation done by the individual in any given situation, until he/she finds the way that will bring him/her to his/her goal.
6. Secondary reinforcement.
Developed by C. Hull and taking in consideration the main idea of stimulus generalization.
7. Operant conditioning and its influence.
The importance of B. F. Skinner in the development of late Audiolingualism, where the use of the so-called “language laboratories” was quite known.
Skinner’s influence in immersion courses was very powerful and it was taken as a scientific approach to language learning until the appearance of Chomsky’s article against behaviorism as a scientific method. Nevertheless, his ideas helped to concentrate in a serious problem, that is, how to increase the learning speed of a new language for adults.
8. Mediation proceses between stimulus and response.
New oriented behaviorists, as Osgood, continued Skinner’s line of thought, but implied some mediators between a given stimulus and its response. The awareness of the simplicity in the formula stimulus-response was significant for the new behaviorists.
9. Learning theory of two proceses.
Far-away from Thorndike, Pavlov or even Skinner, O. H. Mowrer studies two essential variables in a learning situation: fear and anxiety. These mediators take in consideration the emotional state of the individual.
10. Learning through observation.
A. Bandura is one of the first New Behaviorists who stresses that attention, retention, production and motivation, are the basic elements of a learning situation, thus implying the presence of cognitive proceses.
11. Cognitive theories.
The arrival of Cognitive theories reorganized the trends of intensive language courses, originating the so-called Cognitive Code Approach.
A complete rejection of the behavioristic principles of stimulus-response is a consequence of the cognitive perspective of learning processes.
12. Transformational-generative grammar.
An explanation of Chomsky’s influence in the ways of teaching foreign languages, through his rational and cognitive point of view is done.
13. Development theory.
Piaget’s studies of cognitive development and its influence in the Humanistic/Affective Approach of language learning.
In relation to the Hypnagological Method, Piaget’s constructivism has taught that our conscious state not only reflects the world, but contributes to build it as well.
14. Socio-historical Psychology.
Vygotsky and its social perception of consciousness involves a psychosocial perspective of behavior, identifying two modallities of human interaction: symbolic and non-symbolic, interpreting reality to social codes. The notion of mediators is much more developed in Vygotsky than the New Behaviorists. For Vygotsky, a sign possesses meaning.
15. Set Psychology.
D. N. Uznadzé’s Set theory says that in each case the need is the one factor causing the activity of a living being, and the objective situation determines the character of such activity. The combination of these factors promotes general changes and modifications in the living being, manifested in a preparing attitude to the adequate action. In this preparation phase, the subject movilizes all his capacities in order to accomplish the expected tasks, unfolding beforehand an action device. That is, in a few words, a Set.
16. Gestalt therapy.
An explanation of the use of Fritz Perls’ Gestalt therapy, considered as a therapeutical/educative process for personal development, is done.
17. Transactional Analysis.
E. Berne’s Transactional Analysis, together with Gestalt therapy, are, among other techniques, the two main approaches used by the Hypnagological Method in order to break the psychological blockings that may appear during the learning course .
18. Neurolinguistic programming.
Another very practical and complete technique to take the participants into a real immersion in the target language.
Bander and Grinders’ NLP is a powerful tool to make people gain confidence and self-steem during the teaching/learning situation in order to accelerate the process as much as possible.
19. Physiological Psychology.
A summary of new researches and discoveries about the functioning of the human brain, that influenced subsequent approaches, including the Humanistic/Affective Approach, of intensive language courses, is done.
Pribram’s and Luria’s studies are taken into high consideration in the Hypnagological Method.

Chapter 4
Historical perspective.
A historical revision is described, in order to understand our present situation regarding intensive language courses.
1. Translation and Grammar Model.
This is the classical approach. Appart from few historical exceptions, it took many years to manage the target language. The concentration was on memorizing grammatical rules through the reading of classic texts. The typical activity was to translate these texts into the mother tongue.
2. Direct Model.
At the beginning of the 20th Century, it became a necessity to make more and more people able to comunícate in a foreign language.
In the Direct Model nobody is allowed to use the mother tongue in the classroom. Dialogues of modern issues are the main learning sources. Grammar is learned inductively. The instructor, a native speaker, does not need to know the language of the participants.
3. Reading Model.
As a reaction of the model mentioned above, grammar is explained only for the comprehension of a given text. The vocabulary is first controlled and later expanded. Translation becomes once more a respectable classroom activity and procedure. The instructor does not need to have a good verbal ability in the target language.
4. Audiolinguistic Model.
Better known as Audiolingualism, was, again, a reaction to the Reading Model. Audiolingualism started to develop after the Second World War and it takes many techniques used in the Direct Model, although the use of behaivioristic principles is enormous. The lessons are initiated with dialogues, based on the behavioristic idea that a language is a habit, using repetition and imitation which is reinforced by the instructor. The participant has to be many hours in the so-called “language laboratory”, which was very fashionable during the fifties, sixties and even at the beginning of the seventies. Therefore, the influence of Audiolingualism is still relevant in many of its procedures and activities.
5. Cognitive Model.
Within language training this is also called Cognitive Code. This model perceives language as the acquisition of rules and not habit formation. The Cognitive Model, as well as Audiolingualism, are the basis of subsequent serious development of new language teaching methods, specially regarding intensive courses.
6. Humanistic/Affective Model.
This model emerged as a reaction of the lack of affective considerations in Audiolingualism as well as the Cognitive Code.
In this model the conversation has to be significant to the participant, emotionally and cognitively. Translation is permitted. The experience of learning a new language is perceived as a self-actualization process. The instructor is a guide and must be bilingual.
It is in this model where is possible to see some attempts of using psychotherapeutical procedures in a language learning situation.
7. Functional/LSP Model.
This one, more than a model, is mainly part of the development of the Humanistic/Affective Model. Language for Specific Purposes (LSP) is widely used. Not necessarily in intensive courses, being all the emphasis in learning only about the specific activity or profession of a given person. In the Hypnagological Method I also use it, but mainly at higher levels, due to the complexity of the conversations. Nevertheless, LSP can be part of the learning situation at any level because in the Hypnagological Method, as it is explained in later chapters, the vocabulary comes from the participant, not from a book.
8. Summary of the different Models-Approaches.
The seven historical models mentioned above, can be appreciated in a structurized graphic. It is very clear the evolutive sequence in terms of use and analysis.
9. Total Physical Response.
A revision of James Asher’s method is done. His method is based in Developmental Psychology, learning theories and humanistic pedagogy.
This method is considered involved in the Humanistic/Affective Model. Nevertheless, it is not a real accelerative learning method, because after 120 hours of teaching, the participant has not reached any conversational skills. Also, I think that the Total Physical Response is “good” only for very small children, not for adults (including teenagers).
10. The Silent Way.
Other well known method framed within the Humanistic/Affective Model is that of C. Gattegno. It is based in the use of rulers and words in colour, mainly used for children. Nevertheless, for the Hypnagological Method Gattegno’s ideas are important due to his use of the tradition initiated mainly by Pestalozzi, in which the instructor and the participant keep an attitude of absolute cooperation. The participant is not sitting there listening passively, but is taking part of the decision-making. In this way, the learning process is an activity oriented to the solution of problems, creativity and discovery.
Although Gattegno’s method is very coherent, it is used for small children and it is not at all pertinent in intensive courses for adults.
11. Language Counseling-Learning.
A method inspired on the Humanistic/Affective Model was developed by the psychologist Charles A. Curran. The method is based on Carl Roger’s Psychological Counseling. The emotional world of the participant is completely involved in this method. The participants decide on what they want to talk about, while the instructor is helping them to do so. Each course is, in principle, different, because the participants develop their own programme, being the interaction instructor-participant unique in its content. All the person is involved in the learning process.
Curran’s method is relevant to the Hypnagological Method, due to its use of psychological counseling and also in the sense that it is more sensitive to the communicative interactions of the participants. This requires a high standard of professionality for the instructor.
12. Suggestology and its influence.
Due to the fact that the Suggestological Method has influenced directly the development and subsequent use of the Hypnagological Method, a deeper revision of Lozanov’s ideas are given.
It is the first method using music to reinforce the learning process. The effects of this procedure are absolutely relevant. Unfortunately, the Suggestological Method emphazises the memorization of words, instead of the connection between the words in order to learn how to build a complete sentence correctly. This last requirement is essential in the Hypnagological Method. Therefore, most of the concepts claimed by Lozanov have been analysed and discussed as much as possible, in order to clarify the pertinent differences between the Suggestological and the Hypnagological Method.
Lozanov’s concepts such as Authority, Infantilization, Double-plane or Pseudopassivity, are analysed and criticized in order to put forward, later on, more logical and scientific explanations of language accelerative learning processes involved in the Hypnagological method.Chapter 5.
Theoretical foundations of language accelerative learning.
1. Age factor.
The important thing for an adult in the moment to learn a new language is not the acquisition of the so-called native speaker’s accent. Based on biological arguments, we conlude that phonetically, a good pronunciation, intonation and rhythm are essential. Only small children can control a foreign language without “accent”.
For an adult, abstract thinking becomes an advantage when the target language is explained logically, no grammatically, mainly descriptive grammar, as used in conventional methods, and taking the comparison of the language of the participant. The motivation for an adult is based on logical thinking and transference, also logical, of languages. Not the descriptive grammar and its rules. The main factor is to liberate the cognitive style of each participant.
The role of motivation as part of the learning process is analysed. Being more important in this method the level of motivation of the participant than the age. If the motivation is low because of whatever reason, normally being a personal block, it is the job of the instructor to increase the motivational level in order to obtain optimal results.
There are not biological or neurophysiological evidences implying that older people cannot learn a new language acceleratively. Many researches conclude that the difference between a 70 or 80 years old individual and a normal adult of 30 to 50 years of age is time. The older person will need more time to learn the language. Anyway, with a good motivational level, which is normally the case, the older person will many times learn the target language faster and better than the normal adult or even teenager.
2. Intelligence factor.
Updating the concept of intelligence, the new conception of Emotional Intelligence is analysed, concluding that the traditional IQ must be revised due to the consolidated researches in Neuroscience. At the same time stressing that the right combination of Logical Intelligence and Emotional Intelligence will give the key point to increase optimal learning results, including accelerative language training. Implying that emotions are absolutely important in the use of reasoning. In the practical conjunction between feelings and thoughts, the emotion guides people’s decisions all the time, thus working completely with the rational mind.
The so-called flowing state for peak performance is described as part of the important ingredients to accelerate language learning using the emotional as well as logical intelligence. It is this flowing that allows the participants to create their own speech progressively better and better. When the individual participant is involved through the guidance of the instructor into a “permanent” flowing of creation, the success of the course is unstoppable.
3. Memory factor.
Human memory is analysed from a cognitive point of view, that is: sensorial memory, including the iconic and ecoic memory. Working memory, which is under voluntary control. And finally, long-term memory, including episodic knowledge, semantic knowledge and procedural knowledge. The three types of memory are merely functional, and not spatial.
The human mind has a fundamental need of cognitive economy. It is necessary to organise the world in order to avoid confusion. Once it is organised, the quantity of information to learn, to recall and to manipulate is reduced, thus expanding the capability to confront new situations. The information retained is a subproduct of what is understood.
Procedural knowledge and its functioning is especially important in intensive language courses because the motoric schemes required to obtain an optimal phonetic skill, will be essential even before dealing with syntax and semantics.
So if we want the participant to learn a language quickly and to remember the material learned, it is necessary, along the learning process, to create a powerful and well structured memory signals, linking it extremely to the previous knowledge of the individual, in such a way that the pertinent signal can be easily located from multiple access codes.
4. Attention factor.
Attention es conceptualized as a phenomenon deriving from human will. The individual is not simply reactive to sensorial stimulus, but rather acting over it in an active way, searching, selecting information. Attention is an internal activity in direct relation with intentionality, decisión-making and action planning, unless the response has been automatized beforehand.

Chapter 6.
Theoretical foundations of language accelerative teaching.
1. Lateralization of the brain.
A complete analysis of the use of both sides of the brain in an unified teaching situation is done, concluding, among other things, that the right hemisphere learns the melody (pronunciation, intonation and rhythm) of the target language. While the left hemisphere learns words and structures.
The correct use of the boards used in the Hypnagological Method, activates the collaboration of both hemispheres to create a gestaltic unity which is described in Chapter 8.
2. Autogenics – concentrative relaxation..
A deep revision of J. H. Schultz autogenics is done, because this relaxation technique lies under the basis of what I call the Hypnagogic Relaxation used in the Passive Part of the Hypnagological Method.
3. Systematic desensitization.
A description of Wolpe’s reciprocal inhibition through systematic desensitization, even being used within a behavioristic approach, involves Jacobsen’s and Schultz’s methods of relaxation. Nevertheless, one of the important results of systematic desensitization is that a stimulus that does not evoke anxiety when it is imagined in a relaxation state, will not, in any case, evoke anxiety when the individual is in a real situation. This factor is essential for the Hypnagological Method, so the participants obtain confidence along the sessions in order to act spontaneously while the instruction is going on as well as in a real social situation.
4. Sound analysis.
Sound in itself, being an integral part of human llife, can be used to increase a positive mental attitude towards learning. It is therefore important to appreciate how sound and music affect us.
5. Hipnosis and self-hypnosis.
R. H. Rodes theory and practice of the relative psychic exclusion is described and analysed, focusing attention to the posthypnotic phenomenon involved as well as in Schultz autogenics. For learning purposes this programming increases drastically the learning process, especially in the area of memory retention.
An extensive description of self-hypnosis is done. Self-hypnosis, in itself, is practically identical to autogenics aims, but not procedures.
Finally, Erikson’s hipnosis, used within the structure of NLP is discussed due to its positive effects.
6. Rhythm in Suggestology.
A brief description of the function of music in a language learning process is done. As far as I know, Lozanov’s Suggestological Method is the first method using music deliberately in order to increase memory retention.
7. Coaching: mayeutic method.
Inspired on Daniel Goleman’s concept of Emotional Intelligence, this method is used widely in different areas. Its description is necessary due to the importance it has in the practice of the Hypnagological Method. The basis of the Mayeutic Method is that real learning occurs when one is trying to expand the capacity of action, with a real sense of commitment and transformation of our particular way of being. This method, also called socratic, is based on dialogues between the participant and the instructor in a socratic fashion. It is necessary that the target language becomes part of the individual transforming his/her habitual way of being into action performances executed with growing transparency constantly involving the acquired learning in the space in which the trainee will have to perform, being different of the space in which the coaching was developed.

Chapter 7
Towards an open system of teaching/learning.
1. Basic principles.
An extensive critic is done to the language learning courses that use the so-called “teaching books”. In order to have an open system for teaching and learning, in the Hypnagological Method there are no “”teaching books”. The participant is going to create his/her own “book” through the whole process with the guidance of the instructor.
In a closed system, the participants have to “learn” the same way and the same contents. In my open system, at any level, the participant receives a notebook and a pen. That is all. He/she will build-up his/her own learning material. It is the instructor who has to adapt the teaching process to the momentary requirements and needs of the participant. And not, as in the closed systems, where the participant is the one who has to adapt his/her learning skills, needs and requirements to a specific book or external “learning material”-
The way the individual participant uses his/her own language, will be the way he/she will use the target language, increasing automatically the speed and the efficiency of the learning process. In the closed systems the learning process is memoristic, mechanical and passive. In my open system the learning process is active, creative, where the individual is constantly researching and discovering.
2. Speeding-up the memory.
An open system requires logics. The participant is learning logically, not grammatically, the target language. Using his/her own language as a reference, once the participant understands the target language logically, memory is activated.
In a closed system, through repetition and imitation, the participant is not necessarily understanding logically what he/she is doing. It is therefore the information obtained is forgotten very soon.
One of the main principles of my open system is: It is impossible to remember things we do not understand.
As Ausubel remarks, the learning process must lead to a significant change of our experience, and not only, as in a closed system, a simple change of behaviour.
3. Demythologization process.
An essential factor regarding intensive language courses through my conceptualization of an open system of teaching/learning is to demythologize all those “ideas” that inhibit an efficient learning making people feel uncapable of learning a new language.
It is fundamental to start this process right from the Initial Interview with the future participant and naturally, along the course itself. These prejudices about learning a new language (or learning whatever else) are psychological blocks which I refer as Prejudicial Myths being conscious or unconscious.
A revision of the most common Prejudicial Myths are described and analysed:
a) The age.
b) It is necessary to be intelligent.
c) To have linguistic talents.
d) “I know people who have learned (the language) only by speaking to other people in the bars”.
e) Musical ear.
f) “My strong side is mathematics”.
g) “I want to learn Castillian” or “I want to learn Oxford English”.
h) “I do not know how to relax”.
i) “How am I going to retain all that information in such a short period of time?”
j) “I do not think I can concentrate during so many hours per day.”


Chapter 8
Hypnagological Method.
1. Introductory statements.
Learning languages enriches our conceptualization of the world, multiplying it. The acceleration of the learning process enables more people to learn languages efficiently and fast. Therefore, the Hypnagological Method is a result of the development of other accelerative attempts as Audiolingualism or Cognitive Code and lately, the Suggestological Method.
The Hypnagological Method is centered on the individual participant who will be moving, during the course, between two mental states clearly defined and differentiated. The first one is the logical-rational state. The second one I call it the hypnagogic state. Both states are defined and described in their dynamics.
The combination of both states accelerates the learning process, expanding the participants’ creativity into the construction of new concepts and structures through a teleological reconstruction of the memorized contents. Creation becomes a constructional process coming from the interests, the desire of knowing, of controlling the target language, expanding the field of performance in the creation of models, that is, complete sentences, being each time more complex and adequate for the correct descriptive and reasoning of oral communication.
The Hypnagological Method, as a scientific method for accelerative language training, belongs to the Humanistic/Affective Model-Approach, because it follows the “tradition” of what we can consider as the “education through discovering”, based on the spontaneous needs and interests of the individual participant, claiming a complete free expresión and creativity inherent in all human beings.
2. Lozanovian method: analysis and critic.
One of the main advances within Lozanov’s Suggestological Method is the use of relaxation during the teaching/learning process. This practice, taken mainly from Uznadzé’s formulations, accelerated, to a certain extent, the learning process, interacting the conscious and the unconscious.
Nevertheless, the Suggestological Method continues with the use of a “home-made” text book, being the role of the participant, as in any other previous conventional method, a passive one, a receptive one.
Other innovation of the Suggestological Method is the use of music during the so-called “pseudo-passive” part of the learning process. Nevertheless, as it is discussed later, using exclusively barroque music is not at all accelerative or relaxing to most of the participants.
Lozanov’s concepts of Authority, Infantilization, Double-plane and Concert’s pseudopassivity are discussed, analysed and refuted by the Hypnagological Method. Instead of Authority, professionalism; instead of Infantilization, logical-rationalism; instead of Double-plane, logical guidance; instead of Skinner’s and Pavlov’s passiveness, Roger’s and Chomsky’s activeness; instead of Concert’s pseudopassiveness, creativity enlargement.
3. Loosening from Suggestology and Suggestopedia.
The use of an Infantilization-Authority process in Lozanov’s Suggestology has developed in the Hypnagological Method into a Congruent Feedback adult-adult. Thus, everything is based in the creativity of the participant, including memory retention.
The use of barroque music in the Suggestological Method is avoided because peolple, in general, cannot relax with such music, unfortunately.
Lozanov’s idea of learning a language, which merely is to memorize huge amounts of words, is absolutely rejected by the Hypnagological Method. It is not the amount of words making a person to speak a language, but the combination and proper use, structurally, of the words already known. This last idea is deeply described in the Hypnagological Method, being the basis of the Linguistic Transference. Even with a limited vocabulary, for example, at level 1, the person is able to produce coherent sentences spontaneously in order to maintain a sensible conversation with a native speaker. So, not the amount of words, but the structure, the skeleton, understood that as a logical-rational process, is the core of an accelerated learning language process. Once the participant gets involved in acquiring a logical-rational knowledge of the target language, producing his/her own sentences spontaneously, the already known words are used, combined, mixed, elaborated, codified, etc., in very different and diverse conversational contexts.
The use of roleplaying in Suggestology, where the participant “loses” his/her personal identity is out of the question in the Hypnagological Method. Each participant has to be himself/herself. In that way the vocabulary and structure involved during the whole course is the vocabulary and structure relevant to the individual participant and not to anybody else.
The use of “suggestopedic books” is irrelevant in an intensive course. In the Hypnagological Method I do not use books. The other way around, that is, the individual participant is creating his/her own book with the vocabulary and structure coming from his/her own language.
4. Chomsky’s, Piaget’s, Vygotsky´s and Uznadzé’s principles.
Chomsky’s criticism to Skinner’s approach regarding language learning is extensively analysed, concluding, with Chomsky, that learning a language is a creative (and not imitative) process. The participant learns a new language practicing actively internalizing what Chomsky denominates as Generative Grammar, coming from the participant’s own language. This learning process is from inside to outside, contrary to behaviorism. Or in our case of accelerative language learning, contrary to Audiolingualism. The acquisition of a new language is associated to a specific type of mental organization, and not to a higher level of intelligence, being the structure of any sentence a lesson of logics. The participant will transfer what is structurally interiorized of his/her own language towards the target language. This internalized linguistic structure is exactly what I use in Hypnagology while teaching a new language.
Jean Piaget’s ideas about constructivism are a very important frame of reference for Hypnagology, that is, the individual construction of paradigms through the structuring of reality, using assimilation and accomodation as an essential element to learn efficiently. The individual is always constructing his/her own personal structures while interacting in the environment. The individual is constantly immerse in self-regulating proceses, being always active, mentally active, accomodating and assimilating new information in order to construct more complex paradigms. Thus, from a piagetan perspective as well as a Hypnagological one, human beings, during all their existence, are the producers of their own mental structures. A language is not a simple representation of the world.
Vygotsky’s socio-psycho-biological approach, complete the cognitive and constructivist approaches of Chomsky and Piaget, respectively. The psychological tools of the individual have a capability of transforming the cognitive functioning. The psychological tools are social, in the sense that they are the result of a cultural proposal. According to Vygotsky, language, algebraic symbols, musical notes, etc., are a cultural product. The internalization concept of Vygotsky refers to the complex psychological process consisting, mainly, in structuring the activity performed in an external level, interpsychological, being later executed in an internal level, intrapsychological. This is especially true while an adult is learning a new language. What was for others it becomes part of me.
Semiotically speaking, internalization is a process of control of the various forms of external signs, or codes, as verbs, substantives, articles, etc., can be, and the way in which they interact in order to create a correct communication.
Uznadzé’s investigations about the unconscious forms of psychic activity, are relevant in Hypnagology. Uznadzé’s theory of Set implies that need is the one which activates the living being and objective satisfaction determines the form of activity. The combination of these two factors stimulates in the living being general modifications and changes manifested through his/her attitude of preparation for the adequate action. The Set, as preparation for action is a mental state of the totality of the individual. This Set is both conscious and unconscious.
5. J. L. Schultz autogenic influence.
Concentrative relaxation, also known as autogenics, is the foundation of what I call in Hypnagology as the hypnagogic relaxation. That is, it follows the main principles and rational patterns of J. L. Schultz techniques.
6. Karl R. Popper’s critical rationalism.
The Hypnagological Method has taken as its philosophical and inspirational source Popper’s Critical Rationalism. A whole description and analysis of this “philosophical school” is done, due to its relevance in the posterior argumentations about the accelerative proceses involved in the Hypnagological Method.
One of the main postulates of Popper’s ideas and its critical rationalism is that, first of all, a real world exist, independently of if there is somebody or not who knows it. Secondly, our knowledge of things is related with the way of being of those specific things, that is, our concepts and theories are not merely subjective constructions without anything to do with the reality of the external world. And thirdly, the acceptance of critical rationalism, of realism as a sensible attitude, realism in the sense of reasonable. According to this statements, theories are “nets” that we throw in order to capture what we call the world. That is, in order to rationalise it, to explain it and to control it.
A description of how the “three worlds” of Popper’s theory is of vital importance in the moment to teach/learn an intensive course through the Hypnagological Method is done.
In relation to any adaptation, and any type of learning, it is the solution of the problems our main intention. It is also true that all increase of knowledge implies intention of getting away of a problematic situation. Human beings, epistemologically speaking, are interested basically in eliminatig errors. World 3, the world of objective knowledge (different to the other two levels of reality, that is, World 1, or the world of the physical things and World 2, or the world of mental states and subjective certainties) is formed by the objective contents of thought, above all, sciences and arts, that is, culture, and therefore, learning. The simple fact of trying to eliminate errors is a way of getting closer to the truth. In a learning situation, to accuracy.
For our teaching/learning purposes, the constant and continual interaction of the three worlds is necessary. Nevertheless, the reality of World 3 is the key point accelerating the learning process in the Hypnagological Method. In order to differentiate worlds 2 and 3, let us say that World 2 are the mental states and World 3 are rather the products of the human mind, as for example, stories, myths, tools, true or false scientific theories, social institutions, pieces of art, etc. That is, the objects of World 3 are made by human beings, even though there are not always the result of a planned production. Thus, many objects of World 3 exist in a material form. In that case, to a certain extent, they are part or belong to World 1 as well as World 3. The undestanding and comprehension of the objects of World 3 involve an active process. It is the construction or recreation of such object. In order to understand a difficult sentence in the target language, we have to construct it, that is, to see personally how it is done, rebuilding it and redoing it. In reality, we learn to see exploring things actively and manipulating them through trial and error. We are actively solving problems. The capacity to learn a descriptive and argumentative language has genetic basis, according to Popper, (as well as Chomsky), being specifically human. We learn to build objects of World 3 not by vision or direct contemplation, but rather through practice, through active participation. In this way, the objects of World 3 can perform over World 2, that is, over our minds, over us, and us, at the same time, can perform over World 1. The objects of World 3 are abstract, but they are real, because they constitute powerful tools to change World 1 only through the intervention of its creators.
The autonomy of World 3 and its feedback over World 2, and also over World 1, are absolutely important in knowledge increasing, accelerating the learning process, by the supression of errors through a logical-rational critic. The total immersion of the participant in objective knowledge, that is, World 3, creates a drastic acceleration in the learning process. For an adult, to understand actively the target language implies the fact of understanding the logical structural relations of such language, that is, the dialectic structural relations. Self-trascendence during the learning process is accelerating it. Do not confuse self-trascendence with self-expression, even though the last one is an integral part of the first one. In the Hypnagological Method accelerated learning of a foreign language consists, thus, in viewing the contents of objective thought.
The difference between observation and theory within Popper’s perspective is described. Being very important in the Hypnagological Method because the expectations, or theories or hypotheses of the participants, will be guiding the language course. The participant’s sentence formation, that is, his/her structural hypotheses, are the key of accelerated language learning, because only through personal hypotheses, or expectations, the participant learns on what type of observations he/she has to make, where does he/she has to direct his/her attention and in which one he/she has to be interested on. It is therefore, the hypothesis about the target language converted into his/her guide to arrive to new observational results. In this sense, the expresión of the participant comes first. That is, for accelerated learning, the main emphasis is the active speech done by tue participant. Once the expression is more or less established, then the participant will begin to understand. An finally, once understanding is more or less established, “memory retention” and the automatization of using the new language will be emphasized. Due to the lack of knowledge of the Descriptive Grammar of the participants’ own language, (this fact is in reality in any western country probably in 95% of the population) the logical-rational deduction process through individual hypotheses taking as reference one’s own language play a relevant role in learning a foreign language acceleratively to the maximum. Consequently, the associationist learning theories (of stimulus-response, etc.) must be overcome if we want to accelerate the linguistic learning process in normal adults, because just passive repetition does not lead to any acceleration. It is action and interpretation in the light of the objects, purposes and logical-rational explanatory theories the core of accelerated learning. The central question is to replace mechanical repetition with construction, and following that pattern, with the solution of problems. This “method of reconstruction” leads more to a logical-rational comprehension of the items involved than “mechanical” memorization without logical-rational sense. Action is very important for our memory, that is, our conscious can work actively in making our memory to remember, not mechanically, but rather creatively.
7. Theoretical grounds of the Hypnagological Method.
The Hypnagological Method is framed within the Humanistic/Affective approach of accelerated language training. Based primarily on Chomsky’s cognitive principles, Piaget’s constructivism and Popper’s logica-rationalism, it emphazises the skills and responsability of the instructor in any language course. Using the instructor in a conscious and deliberate way psychoterapeutic techniques in order to increase the learning process. The techniques used are various, but mainly Transactional Análisis and Gestalt Therapy are used in order to break-down as quick as posible the psychological blocks about the participant’s feeling of lack of ability to learn a new language or many other Prejudicial Myths.
The use of Descriptive Grammar is completely avoided in the Hypnagological Method, due mainly to the impossibility for most adults, of practically any nationality, to know the Descriptive Grammar in their own language. Instead, a Generative Grammar is used, being denominated within the Hypnagological Method as logical-rational rules. That is, those rules easily recognized by a normal adult. Rules that are deducted, from its pure logics, stimulating directly the linguistic competence of the participant.
The psychological process involved in Hypnagology is that of self-actualization, using intellect and emotions. The participant, while learning the new language acceleratively, literally grows. His/her goal to control in a very short period of time the target language, once reached that goal through the Hypnagological psychopedagogic process, it increases radically his/her self-confidence, opening a whole new world of possibilities. Including other areas of his/her life, that is, a displacement of self-confidence appears, creating a new general way of performing personally and professionally, being totally assertive. That is why I speak of a therapeutical process while learning the target language. In the Active Part, logical-rational state, of the Hypnagological Method, as well as in the Passive Part, hypnagogic state, evoking images, using correctly the jaw’s muscles with their joints and the disposition to listen and to listen to himself/herself, create a totality which I call Hypnagological, because in that situation the participant is working with everything at the same time, forming a gestalt in itself, accelerating, consequently, the learning process.
7.1 The human adult as a logical and rational being.
Thorndike’s trial-and-error is correct. But not as simple as the behaviorists postulated. In humans, in general, and especially adults, it does not appear through a simple stimulus-response association, but it is rather the intention of searching, by trial-and-error, of the thinking organism in itself, always investigating, always searching and finding out new and exciting combinations, in our case linguistic combinations. This happens without the need of being “controlled”, in Thorndike’s style, or “manipulated”, as in Pavlov, or not even “instrumentally conditioned” in Skinner’s style, by the instructor. It is rather the opposite. The participant is always finding new combinations to express himself/herself, not as an external behavioristic associationism, but an innate quality of the individual and also, of course, through previous experience, possessing an attitude, or a series of attitudes, directed to a goal. Influencing this way the selection or trial, of the individual participant. That is, what externally is an associative trial-and-error behaviour, at an affective and cognitive level is a situational exploration in order to find the way to reach the goal. The instructor, in the Hypnagological Method, is the guide facilitating the participant, through a logical-rational process, to reach his/her learning goals.
A description of the similarities of the gestalt concept of “gestal assimilation” and my concept of “hypnagological assimilation” is done. Coinciding both concepts in the notion of growth and personal development while the participant is learning the target language.
The Hypnagological Method bases the acceleration of its learning process in the logical-rational discovery of the dynamics of the target language done actively by the participant and consequently, the non-directive dynamics of the instructor, giving as a result an active and creative global dialectic. Examples of this process are illustrated within the dynamics of the three worlds postulated by Karl R. Popper. Within the Hypnagological Method the linguistic interrelation is taking place through mayeutic procedures.
7.2 Demythologization process and its implications.
The demythologization process requires from the hypnagological instructor all his/her pedagogical and psychological professional skills. Even before starting the course, all those resistances and blocks have to start being demythologized. Continuing the instructor with this process all the way through the course. This is that way because the psychological resistances are not easy to break in many cases. Getting the participant into World 3 permits him/her to get aware of the efficiency and rapid speed of the learning process. Buy until that point of awareness is reached, and it is very individual, many hours and even days have to be intermitently used by the instructor only to demythologize constantly the preconceived ideas of the participant. That is, I attack deliberately the negative attitudes that could appear during the learning process. Or in Popper’s terminology, I coud say that the hypnagological demythologization process consists in transforming the person from passive and receptive learner into an active and selective learner, modifying his/her expectations and theories and programmes of “action”, that is, his/her Prejudicial Myths.
7.3 Grammatical rules versus logical-rational rules.
Inspired in Popper’s deductive thinking, the hypnagological instructor will foster a way of learning the target language through the deduction of logical-rational rules, taking as reference the participant’s own language.
Descriptive grammar, apart from being boring and too technical, is completely unknown (or forgotten) for the majority of the people in practically any country. Therefore, deducing the rules of the target language in a logical-rational way, comparing it with our own language, forces the participants to infer, with the help of the instructor, obviously, the implied logical-rational rules in the target language.
In hypnagology, the logical-rational interconections, links and relations between the different elements of the sentence, are causing the acceleration of the learning process.
A description of the elements that must be emphazised by the instructor while working with logical-rational rules is done.
7.4 Linguistic transference in the learning of a new language.
Linguistic transference is explicitly refered as the process of constant explanation done by the instructor in the language of the participant about the contents of the target language.
The use of descriptive grammar, on the one hand, and the lack of use of certain elemental structures as is done in, for example, the so-called Direct Method (or Natural Method) are avoided in the Hypnagological Method. Both extremes are criticized. Instead of those postures, hypnagology is using logical-rational rules, that is, generative grammar, in order to make a real intensive course. It is necessary for the participant to percieve in his/her mind the inherent logics of the target language through linguistic transference. Transfering, by building his/her own personal sentences from his/her own language to the foreign language in a logical-rational manner. And in this, I am talking not only about the language logical structure, but also the vocabulary used in his/her real life. Language transference is involved in the three phases of language learning, that is, phonetically, sintactically and semantically.
7.5 Creation of a total open sistem.
In the Hypnagological Method the human adult is considered as a creative being, with rationality and imagination. Capable of achieving new tasks through his/her own personal interest and motivation. The expectations of the participant influence his/her performance. It is therefore necessary to create a total open system where the participant is able to concentrate only and exclusively on creating new and innovative sentences through a mayeutic or socratic process between participant-instructor. While creating individual sentences, the participant remembers not by repetition, but rather through the implicit concentration and attention inherent to any creative and mayeutic process.
The teaching situation is centered on the individual participant, as it is in Carl Roger’s client’s centered therapy. Being the main idea the extensive intrinsic resources forming part of the individual that can alter and increase self-confidence and self-directed performances. These resources can be reached, if the instructor is able to create a definite atmosphere of encouraging positive and creative attitudes, that is, encouraging the self-actualizing tendencies of any person.
7.6 Conscious-unconscious integration of the target language.
In order to convert an interpsychic process into and intrapschic one (following Vygotsky’s terminology) the Hypnagological Method integrates conscious and unconscious actively. Being language a social and socializing function, it is reflected externally by the instructor, the boards used, the mayeutic dialogues, the hypnagogic relaxation, etc. And all these activities in the teaching/learning room are designed in such a way so the participant can achieve the internalization of all those elements belonging, just before, to the external world. At the beginning this internalization occurs mainly at a conscious, logical-rational, level. Later, the internalization begins to transform itself into a real intrapsychic phenomenon at a conscious level as well as a very deep unconscious one.
When we hear a sentence in our own language, all the processes of comprehension of the language, that is, the identification of phonemes, syllables and words, as well as the syntactical analysis of the sentence and the semantic extraction of it in order to find the meaning, is done in an automatic, unconscious form. We have internalized a generative grammatical structure, and active, even though at an unconscious level, about our own language. Therefore, what the Hypnagological Method is intending to do through all the accelerative course, is to open the quickest path to achieve internalization of the foreign language for any normal adult, using the generative grammatical structure inherent in the participant’s unconscious as a frame of reference and as a frame of comparison to reach the performative use of the target language while using it.
7.7 Congruent feedback process.
Corrections in formal instruction, done in a discrete and proper way, are converted directly into the required feedback for the participant during the assimilation and accomodation process. It is therefore essential to iniciate right from the beginning what in hypnagology is called as a Congruent Feedback. Not a feedback that inhibits the participant. The other way around. A feedback process stimulating betterness in language performance, having long term repercussions in the linguistic competence of the participant.
Congruent Feedback is explained and cannot be confused with Skinner’s Reinforcement. Congruent Feedback is executed both consciously (during the Active Part, logical-rational state) and unconsciously (during the Passive Part, hypnagogic state).
7.8 Hypnagogic relaxation process.
The hypnagogic relaxation consists of music accompanying the voice of the instructor who, as a mantra, will be “reciting” the elements used just before during the Active Part, logical-rational state, programming the ellaborated items and tunning eventual errors. The following results are obtained during this process:
Increase of energy.
Encouraging self-confidence.
Stimulation of personal interactions.
Memory retention is increased.
It gets deeper into the unconscious logical analysis of the structure.
Eventual tensions of the participant are liberated.
Creation of a pleasurable hypnagogic feeling to continue ahead with the course.
Stimulation of creativity generating spontaneous complete sentences.
Diminishes fatigue.
Increases good humour.
Emerging of associations take place.
Production of meditative self-suggestion.
The use of Congruent Feedback and an explanation of the hypnagogic relaxation process in itself, including the post-hypnagogic effects is done.
7.9 Activating the memory.
All the techniques used in the Hypnagological Method, in both the logical-rational state as well as the hypnagogic state have as a main goal the activation of the participant’s memory retention. An explanation of the techniques used is done.
7.10 Acquiring self-confidence.
Acquiring self-confidence, in the Hypnagological Method, implies the constant expression of the participant. The more sentences the participant is building spontaneously by himself/herself in the target language, the more extensive will be the emergence of self-confidence. And consequently, an always better self-confidence leads automatically to better performance. Therefore, the accelerative learning process is active, not passive. To learn a new language is to speak oneself that language. The better a person expreses himself/herself in the target language, he better he/she will understand when native speakers speak to him/her, and not the other way around.
For self-confidence and accelerative learning, expression comes first. The opposite, listening and trying to understand, decreases self-confidence and the persons may learn a new language, but after many years of “listening”.
The importance of the emotional factor is described.
7.11 The use of blackboards.
Two blackboards, slightly separated, are used in the Hypnagological Method, at any level, in order to stimulate the participant’s visual mobility, producing movement and action all the time.
The way the information is reflected on the blackboards is designed in such a way so the two brain hemispheres are working together, collaborating with each other and intervening overlapping or at the same time in the constant creation of personal sentences, using this way the iconic memory of the participant in order to internalize the structure of the language.
The way of working with the two blackboards is fundamental for the hypnagological instructor because the words and various elements of the target language are placed in such a way in order to create a structural design. And it is this structural design of the target language the one which will remain permanently in the mind of the participant, not statically, buy dynamically, always in constant transformation and development.
7.12 Constant compilation of the verbal tenses.
It is not the repetition but rather the continual creation of structural sentences, distributed through time, that converts itself the foundation of a firm and long lasting posterior spontaneous and free structuring of personal sentences.
In any course of the Hypnagological Method, and especially during the first three levels, constant compilation of the verbal tenses is used along the first days of the course. It is absolutely important phonetically and sintactically. This will lead to an effective spontaneity of speech.
Constant compilation of the verbal tenses defers completely of an implied passive, mechanic learning, of arbitrary and chaotic memorization.
Constant compilation is in itself a learning technique involving all the time discovering, making the participant active in his/her reorganisation of information, integrating it to his/her cognitive structure and reorganising or transforming the integrated combination in such a way to produce the desired learning in a short period of time.
Even with complete beginners Constant Compilation is a process of discovering, of creativity, of research and not a robotic imitation process.
7.13 Enlargement
The ability of oral expression defines without any doubt the person who controls a foreign language. Oral expression is fundamental if the participant has to reach an adequate level of comprehension. Enlargement is absolutely important in order to be able to internalize acceleratively a good oral expression. This Enlargement process, used exclusively in the Hypnagological Method, consists in the expansion and widening, step by step, of the construction of complete sentences. It is through this Enlargement when the participant is deducting, step by step, the logical-rational rules of the target language.
A description of the Enlargement process is done.
7.14 Verticality and Horizontality.
Constant Compilation of the verbal tenses and Enlargement are taking place around the same verbal conjugations during the Active Part, logical-rational state, and afterwards during the Passive Part, hypnagogic state, being done through a technique developed in the Hypnagological Method called Verticality and Horizontality. The first one consists in the conjugation of a complete sentence, through Enlargement, from 1st person singular to 3th person plural in the tenses involved in a specific level. Once Verticality is controlled, the second technique, Horizontality, starts. This second techinque consists in the conjugations of the different tenses involved in a given level, through Enlargement, but only in, for example, 1st person singular, or 1st person plural,etc.
With practice, both Verticality and Horizontality are overlapped indistinctly.
These Verticality and Horizontality techinques, together with Constant Compilation of the verbal tenses and Enlargement, developed in the Hypnagological Method, mean a substantial advance in relation to the acceleration of the learning process from any point of view, that is, phonetically, sintactically and semantically. The participant, while creating these sentences, each time more complex, enriches his/her pronunciation, vocabulary, general and specific oral expression, increasing considerably memory retention and self-confidence. Leading finally and irreversibly to a real spontaneity of speech, being each time more complex and more correct,that is, more fluent. Leading all this to the next step, the mayeutic (socratic) conversational process.
7.15 Spontaneity of speech.
In Hypnagology, the participant is recommended all the time not to try to memorize phrases or sentences. On the contrary, to construct his/her own phrases and sentences, spontaneously.
The acquisition of spontaneity of speech is intimately connected to socratic mayeutics. This technique of logical-rational questions and answers leads to spontaneously verbalized infinite topics of interest, above all, to the participant. The mayeutic technique does not arise resistances or mental blocks in the human adult because he/she is not capable of not answering a general question. Through mayeutics the participant is preparing to confront communicative situations in an effective manner.
In the hypnagological learning process the participant is not “memorizing” a whole pile of words in the target language in order to “speak” it, but rather the totality of the interconnections between those words, creating that way an accelerated spontaneity of speech.
7.16 Personalizing the vocabulary to be learned.
In the hypnagological courses of language learning the vocabulary and the structures to be learned must keep a direct relationship with the daily life of the individual participant, private and/or working life. This happens that way because in hypnagology, while the participant is creating his/her own complete sentences within a specific communicative context, he/she will be transfering at any moment that vocabulary and those sintactic structures, used by him/her regularly en his/her own language. Therefore, the vocabulary as well as the structure that will be used in the target language will be the same as those used in his/her own language. The participant is free to choose the theme he/she wants to talk about, in that way the vocabulary that will be appearing is purely personalized.
7.17 Concealed Disorder Epistemology.
Socratic mayeutics involves apparently an explicit degree of disorder in itself in the technique of questions and answers. Nevertheless, disorder dissapears when the participant is aware that any form of dialogue, which is each time more complex and has the aims of an opened discussion, maintains in its depth an implicit order of the topics discussed. The participant is taking out his/her points of view and preferences. In this way, the technique of Concealed Disorder in a discussion, “forces” the participant “to forget” in which structures he/she is working on at that moment and instead he/she gets involved in a social, political, economical or simply daily life discussion with the instructor and/or with the other participant.
This Concealed Disorder Epistemology creates, among other things, a great spontaneity of speech, a total opening in the moment to give an opinion, to discuss, to argue, to give an argument, etc., in the target language.
The Hypnagological instructor must have a “master plan” of the specific course, but the flexibility of that plan will vary as much as the variety of participants and their learning styles. This point is explained, clarifying the use of the Concealed Disorder Epistemology while using the two blackboards and during the mayeutic process.
7.18 Accommodation-assimilation-reaccommodation-assimilation.
Based on Piaget’s concepts of accomodation-assimilation, in the hypnagological intensive courses the participant is building, step by step, accommodating-assimilating, in order to reaccommodate and assimilate continually, in a constant process leading to the acquisition of the target language acceleratively. Thus, the goal is to open in the most possible radical way, the intellectual as well as emotional skills and abilities of the individual. Once this is reached, the participant enjoys discovering and inteconnecting the notions of the foreign language, using openly his/her own cognitive and affective tools implanted in his/her mother language. The constructive activity of the participant is the real procedural nucleus of the Hypnagological Method.
A technical explanation of the accommodation-assimilation-reaccomodation-assimilation process is done.
7.19 Learning a foreign language and personal development.
Being within the Humanistic/Affective frame of reference, the Hypnagological Method considers that learning a new language involves a process of personal growth in which the participant reaches such development as a consequence of the awareness about his/her own potentialities.
Hypnagological linguistic learning is not merely an accumulation of theoretical knowledge. It is, more than anything else, the epistemological construction and acquisition of knowledges, being these accommodated and assimilated by the participant actively. Being able later on to confront naturally and spontaneously unpredictable stiuations. This contributes in itself to the development of the participant as an individual, at a personal and social levels.
7.20 Direct experience in accelerated learning of languages
Through the logical-rational state of the hypnagological process, the participant’s direct experience takes place, first, while building his/her own phrases and sentences in a form of a story, and later, a real dialogue. Socratic mayeutics is the axis where all the conversations of the target language are centered. The participant starts “drawing”, step by step, spontaneously, his/her own “world’s map”. That is, the mayeutic technique leads us to consider the personal guideline of the immediate environment, internal and external. This direct experience of his/her own “maps” allows him/her to increase the constant use of the target language, being every time more complex in its structuring.
An explanation of how direct experience is stimulated by the hypnagogical instructor is done.
7.21 Homework is unnecessary in an intensive language course.
Using the three modalities of perception, that is, visual, auditive and kinestesic, at the same time, is the key of learning a language in a short period of time. The use of these modalities in the Active Part as well as in the Passive Part are designed in such a way so the participant does not need at all to go home and “study” for the next day. On the contrary, in the Hypnagological Method the learning process takes place in situ while dealing with the logical-rational and hypnagogic relaxation states. An explanation of this statement is done.
7.22 A “textbook” is not needed.
The use of a “language textbook” is absolutely eradicated in the Hypnagological Method. The vocabulary and structure has to emerge from the participant. That is, while producing his/her own personal sentences, the vocabulary and generative structure will be expressed through his/her own language.
It is impossible to produce vocabulary and structures emerging from other persons. It has to be and it is his/her own personal vocabulary and speech, the one that will be used constantly in his/her daily existence.
The so-called language textbooks limit the capacity of the participant, mainly bacause a huge amount of vocabulary and structure designed in the textbooks do not have, probably, anything to do with the vocabulary and structure used by the participant in his/her own language.
The disadvantages of the textbook, whatever language textbook, are explained in detail.
In the Hypnagological Method the individual participant is the one who is going to create his/her own textbook, step by step, according to his/her own guidelines, following, obviously, his/her own needs.
7.23 The hypnagological instructor.
The hypnagological instructor is the facilitator who helps the individual participant to fulfil his/her own linguistic potential. Helping to modify the linguistic performance of the participant, step by step, towards a real communicative skill in the foreign language.
From the hypnagological point of view “modelling” is a process with a coherent and congruent constructivist perspective. It is the participant the one who is “modelling” actively his/her linguistic performance with the pertinent help and guidance, equally active, of the hypnagological instructor. And here I stress that the active collaboration from the instructor must be absolute.
The process of feedback, through all the course, is explained. The instructor is teaching by doing coaching, which I rather call mayeutic or socratic method. It is a relationship between a facilitator and a client, following Carl Rogers’ statements. The interrelation between the participants in a hypnagological course, including the instructor, becomes everyday more and more “intense”, profound, more full of ideas, performing the individual more and more freely in his/her wish to express whatever comes to his/her mind and, of course, about his/her own experiences, working as well as privately, in the target language. This interaction accelerates drastically the assimilation of the new language.
7.24 The participant in hypnagological courses.
The participant’s role in a hypnagological intensive language course must be always active. Active in the sense of producing a relationship of total freedom and creativity with the instructor.
The target language becomes each time easier, being for the participant a pleasure to attend the sessions, mainly, because he/she enjoys a creative freedom which is the core of human learning. Reaching that way the desired goal, that is, to control the target language in a very short period of time.
An explanation of motivational factors is done.

Appendix 1.
Explanation of the different modules.
A comprehensive explanation of the 6 different modules, containing each one 50 sessions of 40 minutes per session, to reach a given level, is done.
The new conceptualization and practice of the Hypnagological Method is time. While in a conventional method each module could have a duration of 8 to 9 months, that is, in order to reach level 3, which is a very good level, the beginner needs around 3 years to reach that point. In contrast, any type of intensive course through the Hypnagological Method to any normal adult, practically from any nationality, not being of any importance his/her educational background or age, to reach level 3, will take only some days or few weeks. In the most intensive one, called Super-Crash Course, in 10 days is possible to reach level 3.
Finally, a series of graphics are presented, showing aspects as the number of participants taking part in intensive language courses through the Hypnagological Method by nationalities, their educational background, age, modalilties of linguistic training, etc.

Appendix 2.
A couple.
An extensive description of a Spanish intensive course to an English couple is done.
50 sessions in 1 week (5 days from Monday to Friday). 10 sessions per day. To reach level 1.

Appendix 3.
Individual course.
A comprehensive description of an English Super-Crash Course to a Spanish person.
15 sessions per day during 10 days. In total 150 sessions. To reach level 3.

Appendix 4.
Group course.
A description of a Spanish Half-Intensive course to a group.
5 sessions daily during 20 days. In total 100 sessions. To reach level 2.

Appendix 5.
Problematic cases.
A brief description of 3 problematic cases and the solution of those cases is done.