Tools for achieving excellence in communication: NLP

One of the main goals of a teacher of Spanish as a foreign language is achieving effective communication in the classroom. It’s important to consider the circumstances surrounding classes: are you teaching in a public or private school, is it located in a non Spanish-speaking country or is it in a country where the Spanish language is spoken.

If you’re teaching in a non-Spanish speaking country, you’re students will likely share one common language, which makes it relatively easy for teachers to manage situations when students’ native language interferes with the target language (Spanish in this case). Teaching in a Spanish-speaking country poses an interesting challenge that’s not always easy to manage: a group of students with different native languages who all have their own specific difficulty areas in Spanish. As those of us that make a living in this exciting profession already know, dealing with this type of group constantly puts the teacher’s communication skills to the test.

Spanish teachers often search like a bloodhound for recipes to help us with our work. In our opinion, and trusting the notion that one must never reject any possibility, no matter how strange it may seem, the series of techniques that’s been implemented in the U.S. for the last few years known as neuro-linguistic programming is worth taking a look at. 

NLP can help us better understand the paraverbal language of each student and find more effective channels of communication for each situation. This is clearly not a miracle solution for improving communication in the classroom, but we feel that the information available on these techniques is worth taking a look at. We recommend consulting some of the many manuals on the market that explain these strategies.

At don Quijote shop, in the books for teachers section, we offer an introduction manual: Introduction to Neuro-linguistic Programming, by Thies Stahl. This book gives an overview of the method which can help you understand the fundamentals of the technique and decide whether or not you’d like to delve deeper. This book is recommended for communicators interested in the constantly evolving search for excellence in communication.