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 ‘There is no such thing as reluctant learners, only inflexible teachers’ NLP adage
NLP offers the unique opportunity for teachers, trainers and educators to learn new ways of inspiring and engaging learners. With an increased awareness and a wealth of effective strategies, teachers can become more skilful in creating positive environments and designing, planning and developing successful learning.
Use Your Edge works with teachers to support them in their role of working with others to accelerate learning and maximise potential.
What are the benefits for teachers?
- Experience some of the key NLP presuppositions or convenient truths and their implication in the classroom.
- If it is possible in the world for anybody else, then it is possible to learn.
This opens up a world of possibilities, keeps us from limiting beliefs about ourselves and others and encourages an openness and willingness to find solutions.
- Nothing can’t be learned if it is chunked properly.
Learn how to learn and succeed in every situation
- There is no such thing as failure, only feedback… and a renewed opportunity for success.
NLP encourages us to ensure that our feedback focuses on behaviour and it trains us to distance performance from the person and their identity. It emphasises achievable paths to improvement. Feedback is honest, yet empowering and it affirms the worth of the person receiving it. The past can’t be changed but we have control over how we respond to it. Therefore, feedback is forward looking, offering options and encouraging learners to stay flexible. It is designed to support the benefits of further development. For teachers themselves, it allows them to see professional development from a different perspective.
- We all have the resources that we need or we can create them.
NLP trains us to recognise that students are capable of developing and managing their own learning. We learn to use language that focuses on improving learner potential and supporting learners to develop their own resources. The student gets the message that they already have the strategies, which once explored will be extremely useful. It means focusing on the moments when people do things well and encouraging them to do more. This also allows the teacher to go beyond what she/he knows and it emphasises that learners can learn from each other as well as from the teacher.
- All behaviour has a positive intention.
This for some can be a challenging concept. Nevertheless, this presupposition frees us up to look at the positive intention and to help solve problems by providing choices rather than assuming that something is wrong with the learner and automatically placing blame. 
- Develop your awareness of how language works. NLP throws light on what is involved in effective and successful communication. It highlights how language in general draws its strength from the human sensory system and shows how language and behaviour are so closely linked.
- Make your classes come alive and more memorable by using a variety of sensory- based language and descriptive metaphors. Learn to develop multiple descriptions for the learnings you want to foster.
- Unpack the learning processes that can have a profound effect on learner success, broaden your ways of communicating with learners who think differently and move away from teaching how you like to be taught. Become aware of metaprogammes – the perceptual filters that we use to interpret the world and our experience. Identify learners’ strengths and match those with the methodologies and material that we use to enable them to learn.
- Are your learners better starters, middlers or finishers?
- Do they work better alone or in collaboration?
- Do they tend to see how things are the same or how things are different?
- Do they prefer routine or a lot of variety?
- Are they global (big picture, trends, patterns etc) or more specific (details, facts, bottom line etc)?
- Effective lesson planning means knowing what you want to achieve. With NLP you will be become proficient in outcome thinking. You’ll learn to set practical and ecologically well-formed outcomes, goals and objectives and you’ll be more aware of when you have achieved them.
- An awareness of NLP can help you to build trust and confidence more successfully. Foster rapport and learn how to mirror posture, gestures,
 facial expressions and even breathing. Improve learner effectiveness and learn to use positive language to give instructions, thus keeping your learners focused on what you want them to do.
- Learn to create and maintain positive attitudes to learning. Create positive states and anchors. Bring learning inside and get students to ‘associate’ with what is being studied. Help students prepare for exams with useful ‘visualisation’ strategies.
- Develop effective ways of overcoming learning blocks. Support your learners to overcome limiting beliefs about themselves, explore the relationship between beliefs & capabilities and learn how to challenge the negative language that appears in the classroom.
- NLP allows you to see your actions and those of others in another light. You’ll learn to acknowledge and respect differences and build better relationships – even with difficult people. You’ll become a more productive colleague and develop strategies to respond resourcefully and increase your behavioural choice in challenging circumstances and when you are in stressful situations.
- As a teacher NLP will help you to feel more positive about your career and allow you to try out new ideas and develop more effectively and with more awareness. Your learners will have improved self-esteem, more motivation and show greater involvement in classroom activities. They’ll take more risks and reach their learning goals more successfully.
Get in touch with Use Your Edge for more information on how we can support you and your educational organisation at yoursuccess@useyouredge.com
"It matters not what someone is born, but what the grow to be."
Professor Dumbledore. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.
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