Introduction
NLP was an ideology propagated in the United States in the 1970s, and has largely been popularized as one means through which individuals can develop their self as well as their communication. The term was proposed by Bandler and Grinder (1975a) as a “purported systematic, cybernetic links between a person’s internal experience (neuro), their language (linguistic) and their patterns of behavior (programming)” (cited in Tosey and Mathison 2003). It is a method which can offer one’s “potential and detailed understanding” of their own “subjective experience” according to the aforementioned author. This paper draws on various research carried out on the particular topic, and develops an argument in line to the way learning and teaching has implemented, or how it can implement NPL. Further discussions have been availed by the initiators of the model (see Bandler and Grinder (1975b; Bandler, 1985).
Although NLP has been presented by McLendon (1989) as appearing in between 1972 and 1981, the method was an outcome of efforts by two people attached to the University of California in 1970’s, namely Bandler, a student, and Grinder, a professor in Linguistics. The method has found applications in a wide range of fields, including market research, management, medicine, law and sales among others. There have been efforts to let people know how NLP can be of benefit to them; training courses have been taking places all over, Denmark, Germany (Hager, 1992; 1990) and around the world (Norway: Romania (Holdevici, 1990).
Human beings are born with mental faculties whose ability has far reaching consequences when put into the right use. We have had of philosophers like John Locke who professed and coined a philosophy that human beings are born with an empty brain that is written on by experiences and that education helps one to be freed from any suffering and bondage induced by the systems created by human beings like politics among others. How you ever imagined of being able to invent a gadget that will help to solve many problems and help alleviate human suffering? Or still coming up with very innovative ideas that no one has ever imagined which at the very best can help the very poor and the rich a like in the society? Or just doing an outstanding thing out of personal initiative and creativity? Have you imagined your brain being able to fathom and comprehend great ideas useful both to yourself and others? Learning has been the key to unlocking anyone’s potential. There are experiences we gain in life that help us to be freed but there are innate abilities, the untapped potential whose discovery in any human being depends on the ability to bring them forth. This can be achieved through training our minds towards practicing and learning to comprehend the idea and bringing it forth. We can do things differently from the norm already established by simply training our minds to grasp them more quickly. We can perfect our thinking to learning certain ways of doing the normal things undiscovered by others in unique ways.
Neuro-Linguistic Programming
Many people have defined NLP differently. Smee and Linda in their work “Neuro-Linguistic Programming, The Key To Accelerated Learning” (2002), say that ‘People in NLP concern themselves with modeling what it is about leaders in every field of human endeavor that sets them apart from everyone else’. To them modeling involves an ability to discover certain hidden forms in any profession through some practices which when practiced yield the intended results. They also say that learning to achieve NLP can best be achieved through Accelerated Learning which is seen as the ability to learn very first by use of such techniques as music, visualization, brain gym among others. To them NLP facilitates Accelerated Learning.
McWhirter (1992) notes that NLP is the skill of sharing excellence’ or the study of the structure of subjective experience’ this makes NLP to exist equally as a skill for sharing information and for individual growth.
The name, was devised by Bandler and Grinder, and it mostly symbolizes the observation that an individual is a complete mind-body structure using patterned links amidst his/her inner involvements which are referred to as neuro, his/her language which is referred to as linguistic, and his/her actions which are referred to as programming. Therefore referring to Dr. Smee and Linda Smee it’s clear that NLP is a process where one learn’s how to verbalize what is in her senses through certain actions that have been learned over time. This technique has had a wide acceptance in many field of knowledge that include education where it is widely used by teachers, learners and coaches and in psychotherapy field.
Background Information
Neuro-Linguistic Programming as noted by many writers has its origin in the University of California, Saint Cruz in the 1970s. The two progenitors of this approach to learning include Richard Bandler and John Grinder. Bandler was a student then in the university studying Mathematics and Gestalt therapy, computer programming and was also a musician (as noted by Dr Paul Tosey & Dr Jane Mathison 2006) while Grinder was a professor of linguistics in the same university. The two established co-worked using there areas of specializations to develop NLP. Bandler analyzing systems sculpted some patterns in everything he did and practically used his patterns on anyone who gave him an opportunity especially those disillusioned and did not know what to do Dr. Smee and Linda Smee (2002). After he had modeled a number of patterns and trying them out on different people, those models became the first techniques of Neuro-Linguistic Programming that were used extensively in healing persons with obsessions and psychological disorders. His fascination in studying the human mind (Dr. Smee and Linda Smee (2002), helped in designing the models that have been used not only in Psychology but also in many other fields that one could identify a pattern to model. The ideology has been propagated by writers such as Dilts’ (2000; cited in Tosey and Mathison, 2003).
NLP leans more on progress in learning than on cause and effect approach of learning that stresses learning as the fundamental ingredient to an individual’s adjustment and progression in life. It believes that individuals are intrinsically innovative and gifted; the approach also presumes that individuals perform with respect to how they comprehend and exemplify the world, and not necessarily to how things already are or already have been postulated to be.
Richard Bandler being a gestalt student became captivated about the human mind, his relationship with John Grinder who had done research on Noams Chomsky’s Transformative Grammar, made them to contest verbal misrepresentations, identifying oversimplifications, and being able to bring back any data erased from the customers talk. The external construction as seen in the clients’ conversation was to unearth an ample illustration of an inner construction present in the clients’ minds that will help to counsel the client and help him. The two analyzed Perls’ via his tape recordings and noted a another Together they studied Perls’ via tape and observed a second therapist Virginia Satir by whom they came up with what they referred to us the ‘meta model’, which was a an ideal tool for collecting data and challenging a customers’ verbal speech and his primary thoughtfulness. They observed a client talk, and would be able to construct the pattern of his speech to discover any interrelatedness and missing links that would be essential in finding out how to cure the problem. This explains why they perceived communication as a primary element in developing one’s potential in discovering solutions to his problems. Our unconsciousness has hidden information about experiences we have gone through which is the key to unearthing our potential and learning new experiences. In the general world we have been modeled to assume certain ways of behaving and attending to issues, there is a map for doing everything. In NLP, the map is distorted; one is taught or coached on how to invent his own route to doing things. This brings forth new discoveries essential for growth of an individual.
Therefore the emphasis is on comprehending the organization in anything and not the content of the familiarity as posited by Tosey and Mathison. Bandler derived three principles that have had far reaching applications in various fields that included in “Neuro-Linguistic Programming, The Key to Accelerated Learning” by Smee and Linda (2002). These three principles include that all mortal familiarities can be defined in relationship to intellectual representations of actual occasions that consist of pictorial descriptions, sound, innermost conversations, scent and sense of taste: also that a person’s intellectual representations can be explained in detail using a linguistic style that can effortlessly be well-read since it is engrained in practices shared by the entire human race and more so to people living in the developed world that included use of music instruments and how to control gadgets such as a television set. And lastly he recognized that every sensual impression remained pooled in a certain arrangement that is in agreement to the talent being molded. On the same note he discovered that there were uniformities in the arrangements being molded when the modeler did his best and when he did the worst. Everyone has the ability to know when he has grasped something out of a teaching, a lesson or an experience and when not. When he has learnt it’s like a vivid image in his eyes which he can envisage.
It seems clear that NLP involves a sense of interest pooled together with an approach that brings forth concrete outcomes. This has made this approach to receive a wide acceptance in the fields of training, coaching, teaching and learning (Smee and Linda, 2002).
Some other basic principles espoused include: the focus on the individual, he/she is the bare minimum in attaining success for NLP. the faster he grasps it the better for the process:
designing the success strategy that involves one setting up his time bound specific objectives. Our mental abilities can be restructured to focus on what we want achieved and this is determined by how organized we are in achieving our set objectives one at a time to avoid clogging. What are you aiming at? Do you know the path you desire to take? This is another principle that demands that we understand our surroundings and remove any hindrances in achieving the set objectives. What is it that is your inadequacy? Find ways of dealing with it in order to improve on your current status.
Another principle is the willingness to alter our rigid plans and be able to adjust to the changing times. A person who succeeds is one who has an ability to brace for all occasions and face reality with a desire to overcome. NLP has also impacted and been impacted upon by areas like “transformational grammar” (Grinder and Elgin 1973), “person-centred counseling” (Rogers 1983) and “Gestalt therapy” (Perls 1969) where it has found application. In addition, it has impacted upon “cybernetics” (Ashby, 1965) (cited in )
As you progress on there are moments when one feels inadequate to go on, the understanding that disappointment is bound to come and our willingness to deal with it and move on is tantamount to success, gives us the impetus to soldier on, device survival techniques, invent answers to the problems and advance on the value of what you are engaging in. There is need to respect one another-the trainer and trainee in the process of NLP since it’s this understanding that helps us to know how people relate to different impetuses and convictions that form the basis for talking and engaging.
Since the inception of this approach to learning and being experimented by Bandler, it has had a wide usage by many people in different disciplines like in psychology, teaching, learning coaching, and business and in organizations. Over the years NLP has become increasing popular in nations such as United Kingdom where NLP is actually useful their schools, like ‘through the UK NLP network called NLPEdNet’iv, through interest from associations such as the Society for Effective Affective Learning (SEALv), and through the practice of individual teachers and learners who have received NLP training. NLP is also a recognized mode of psychotherapy in the UK, accredited by the UK Council for Psychotherapy (assigned to the Experiential Constructivist Therapies sectionvi) as Paul Tosey and Jane Mathison (2003) writes in their paper: “Neuro-Linguistic Programming: Its Potential For Learning And Teaching In Formal Education”.
NLP as an approach has found wide acceptance in the field of education where it is used to suggest answers to problems faced during lessons and in handling students in a classroom. Paul Tosey and Jane Mathison (2003) notes in this approach, interactive learning is of the essence where responses are vital in generating communication between a learner and the teacher. This helps the trainer to know the areas of improvement in his approach and for the learner to seek clarification and to air out his/her opinion as regards the teaching. Everyone behaves as per how he creates things and not as to how they already are. This calls for creativity in creating our own models to use and challenging the existing ones. What we see internally is verbalized and in turn it affects our behavior.
As learners there are patterns that we have interacted with which are challenged and shaped as one goes through NLP. Many who went through the old system of learning where memorization and rote learning was the way of vetting how intelligent one is, know that failure was embarrassing to many students and it always created a sense of fear. This is because the forces of learning were external. Given the opportunity of self-discovery and communication, then the subject of failure is driven away. When one discovers for himself a certain way of learning how to do things which he can support because he invented it, his belief of what the future holds changes, optimism sets in and learning becomes more simplified and easier. NLP makes the learning environment conducive in the sense that the learner is very free to express himself/herself, bring out the things they enjoy doing, making it look fun, with this their perception of learning changes, since most of them are used to that where the teacher is source of knowledge and they are recipients’, so when they go through, this their thinking of being passive learners is changed, their role in creating their future is envisioned and enhanced so that they are in charge of their own outcomes which determines how their future shall look like. In order to achieve relevance by the learner teaching therefore becomes critical. It does not only involve the passing on of information but it also involves peoples formed views around how the activity they are involved in looks like. It therefore marks an intense change in how individuals view learning and themselves in the learning process.
These are variations in the procedures directing learning, where the content is of the topic is not emphasized. It accounts for factors like the generalizations inbuilt in people about learning that informs what they view as learning, how they visualize their future, what they make of themselves as students which have connections to their dreams or pictures in their minds, resonances they make in their minds, what they feel, tastes and smells which form an integral of their data processing system. Teaching therefore is therefore verbalizing the ingredients of a lesson, similarly it involves the way we prompt knowledge production by the way we communicate it as teachers. And therefore it is essential for teachers and coaches to be conscious of how to distinguish what is contained in a topic and the methods of learning the topic. This will in turn affect the modeling of patterns of presentation, that guides the learners to be active constructors of what they take in and therefore have the ability to construct their own future. In NLP, teachers should be able to look out for non-verbal cues and verbal cues because they help us to determine the meaning of an expression that a learner has which is important in guiding the learning process. It is true that we select information from an individual’s non-verbal cues like tone variations more than what they actually say. Be sure of what you are saying because we cannot avoid communicating. The realization that every behavior demonstrated has an affirmative meaning, should make the learner and teacher conscious of every way they behave since it will help to realize a positive way of analyzing things.
For example when a student is cheeky in class, it means then that it is a way he is using to demand attention from the teacher or other students, this may be done without the learners’ knowledge, therefore it becomes the role of the teacher to offer an alternative constructive thing to do that will help the student to be attentive and divert the cheekiness to it. The realization of a holistic approach to learning is critical for the teacher and learner. Our mind and body are interconnected. This means therefore that the teacher should advise the students to sit upright, to be attentive, to provide for fun games that loosens tension in class and any other physical exercises that will keep the child active. Sometimes giving learners easy quizzes to solve makes them active in class. We need to discover as teachers the best time when the learners concentration is high and use that effectively to facilitate learning since that is the time they grasp ideas the most.
If we discover that all knowledge can be found from our vicinity, as teachers or coaches, we shall appreciate our learners abilities and model it in such a way that they can tap from them to gain knowledge. Once the learners discover this they will use their abilities to tap the knowledge. No one approach is effective in delivery of content. If a learner does not understand you after much effort of teaching, then it calls for the teacher to be at the level of the learner, try to understand how the learner thinks, this will help you to find the best way of communicating the content which the learner will appreciate.
Steps to NLP
Several people have recommended a number of steps that can assist in Neuro Lingustic Learning. For example, the following has been suggested as steps to NLP exercises towards one’s success:
- Identify what your conclusion will be. What is your desired end? What exactly are you visioning in that end? If for example it is a car you want, which make? Which color? Engine capacity? Does it use diesel or petrol? This helps one to remain focused and be precise on what he actually wants at the end and therefore design the pathway towards achieving this.
- Find a role model to emulate. Who are you looking at and he/she inspires you towards achieving your objective? Find time to discover how they achieved what they have achieved, ask, and begin doing like he does, behaving, thinking and anything that will make you achieve what you want out of the person.
- Have a sense of individual harmony. Develop the feeling that what you are doing it is you who is doing it and not influenced by anything. Know yourself and trust what you are doing. What are your principles? Can you stick to them?
- Act! Whatever you may dream or want to have as your end result can never come unless you do something. Calculate where you want to go and start with small beginnings they will take you somewhere.
- Have sensual alertness. Be alert to the way you feel, and the way other people feel and are responding in certain situations, this sensitiveness gives one the ability to adjust to favorable situations that will help him achieve the desired end.
- Don’t be too rigid! Act on your feedback to adjust to favorable conditions that will yield the intended outcome.
Some questions have been posited regarding the theory of NLP. These questions include the extent for “coherent theoretical base” for the NLP as poised by Craft (2001; cited in Tosey and Mathison, 2003). This is in comparison with NLP as having a “coherent theoretical base”. In other theory, it can be understood as transdisciplinary (Gibbons et al 1994; cited in Tosey and Mathison, 2003) because it draws from a many fields. There is need for more theorization of NLP, so that it may be regarded as credible academically. There is need for differentiation on how the theory differs from other perspectives such as phenomenology and others.
Conclusion
The name, was devised by Bandler and Grinder, and it mostly symbolizes the observation that an individual is a complete mind-body structure using patterned links amidst his/her inner involvements which are referred to as neuro, his/her language which is referred to as linguistic, and his/her actions which are referred to as programming. We have looked at Neuro-Linguistic Programming as an approach of learning that values communication in personal development. It is imperative to mention that this approach to learning is essential in developing persons who can direct learning and own it. It helps to make the teacher/trainer/administrator as a facilitator of the learning process who helps the learner to discover for himself that he has all it takes to gain out of the environment in terms of learning. It uses ones sensory experiences which are verbalized and used in a definite way to generate some outcomes.
The traditional methods of learning emphasized have had trouble being eliminated from the system. This is generated out of the fear of the coaches or trainers that NLP will distract the existing status. Many argue that if the traditional approaches made them who they are then they equally work for the consecutive generations. The context we live in has changed from the previous one, what used to work decades ago no longer works since there are changes in perceptions, technology among other things. This change necessitates new thinking in the way things are done and therefore the way we learn things also changes. Take for example technological changes, a decade ago, not everyone could afford a computer or have a phone or internet services, today we live in a global village, he dynamics of life necessitates new approaches to learning and way of doing things. A positive attitude and a desire to learn are needed to achieve this. All field of life need new thinking, people who can discern the secrets of doing things in a new way patterned to bring outcomes not familiar. NLP can help achieve this in all fields of life. There have been concerns regarding the outdated and oversimplified nature of the NLP models.
NLP as an approach has found wide acceptance in the field of education where it is used to suggest answers to problems faced during lessons and in handling students in a classroom. The method has found applications in a wide range of fields, including market research, management, medicine, law and sales among others. There have been efforts to let people know how NPL can be of benefit to them; training courses have been taking places all over the world. Others have proposed the need to update the models of NLP (Robbie, 2000).
References
Ashby, W. (1965). An Introduction to Cybernetics Methuen. London.
Bandler, R. (1985). Using your Brain for a Change Moab. Utah: Real People Press.
Bandler, R., & Grinder, J. (1975a). The Structure of Magic I: a book about language and therapy. California: Science and Behaviour Books, Inc.
Bandler, R,. & Grinder, J. (1975b). Patterns of the Hypnotic Techniques of Milton H. Erickson, M.D. Vol 1. CA.: Meta Publications.
Dilts, R. (2000). Encyclopedia of Systemic NLP Capitola, CA.: Meta Publications.
Gibbons, M., Limoges, C., Nowotny, H., Schwartzman, S., Scott, P., & Trow, M. (1994). The New Production of Knowledge London: Sage.
Grinder, J. & Elgin, S. (1973). A Guide to Transformational Grammar New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.
Hager, M. (1990). Using Neuro-linguistic Programming to learn vocabulary. Praxis des neusprachlichen Unterrichts, 37 (1), 59 – 61.
Hager, M. (1992). Timeline and other elements of Neuro-linguistic Programming in the language classroom. Praxis des neusprachlichen Unterrichts, 39 (2), 138 – 139.
Holdevici, I. (1990). Neurolinguistic programming: A form of mental training in high-performance shooting. Revue Roumaine des Sciences Sociales Serie de Psychologie, 34 (2), 169 – 173.
Rogers, C.R. (1983). Freedom to Learn for the 1980’s. Ohio: Merrill
Tosey, P. and Mathison, J. (2003). Neuro-linguistic programming: its potential for learning and teaching in formal education. Web.
Locke, J. (1997). An Essay Concerning Human Understanding. Roger Woolhouse. (Ed). New York: Penguin Books, 307.
Mathison, J. (2003). The Inner Life of Words: an investigation into language in teaching and learning, doctoral thesis. Department of Educational Studies, University of Surrey.
McLendon, L. (1989). The Wild Days: NLP 1972 – 1981. California: Meta Publications.
McWhirter, J. (1992). Sensory Systems Training Manual, Sensory Systems. Glasgow, UK.
Perls, F. (1969). Gestalt Therapy Verbatim Moab. Utah: Real People Press.
Robbie, E. (2000). The ordering principle of the meta model of NLP. NLP World, 7 (3), 25 – 66.
Smee, P., Linda, S. (2002). Neuro-Linguistic programming, the key to accelerated learning.