Has anyone come across this?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suggestopedia
http://lozanov.hit.bg/

Is it for real? Does it really work?
It claims to be especially effective for learning foreign languages...

Edit: The more I read about it, the more it seems like some kooky pseudo-science...

Additional Edit: Here is a specific example of learning Japanese:
http://www.griffith.edu.au/school/lal/ja...on.sp.html

I studied this in graduate school (it was compulsory, trust me). And although I am a fan of various teaching styles, and always tried to incorporate as many as I could in the classroom (back when I taught Japanese in the States), I could never help but feel a smile creep upon my face when I read or hear about suggestopedia.

In fact, I remember one teaching pedagogy class where each one of the students had to pick a teaching style and do a sample lesson with that style. A good friend of mine picked suggestopedia (we both thought it was just crazy, but that's why he picked it, it seems), and did a well-researched sample lesson.

I have to hand it to him, because he gave that lesson as if he were a true suggestopedia convert, but the whole time it was everything I could do just to not laugh out loud. Maybe I'm just an insensitive touchy-feely-hater. Maybe you just have to be in a suggestopedia classroom to realize the absurdity of it.

Or maybe you just need to be a new-age, crystal harmonizing, in-vibe with the universe hippie.

Okay, sorry. That last one was uncalled for.
Maybe I should just stop now.

Yes, it is for real. I'm sure it has worked for some, just as any other method has been successful to some extent. (I don't know of any methods that were created and spread around that didn't work at all for anyone.)

I believe it was mainly designed for foreign language learning. Perhaps, there were offshoots for other subjects, but I don't know about that.

It may seem like some kooky-pseudo-science, but it was actually based off linguistic research and some of the same concepts as AJATT. But the transition from theory/research to application is always a bit shaky. This may not have been the best pedagogical interpretation of the evidence/theory.

I believe it was a brief trend that isn't really used these days. At least not in the states. I think there are some classes that still use it in Europe (eastern? Hungary? Or maybe that's where it was started. I can't recall.)

Just came across this in my language teaching class. My teacher posted a link to a youtube video of a real suggestopedia class. For anyone interested: http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=ue8KxoYc_Uw

Watch the video and make your own judgments.

The truth is though no real one method "works". Everything takes effort from the student. Classes should have multiple (effective) ways of studying incorporated into them.

I don't see why it wouldn't work to some extent, and I don't see what's so crazy voodoo about it... People just get embarrassed easily, I guess. I am skeptical though, that you could get a class to sing classical(or any) songs together

Hmmn.. I believe they used this same method to teach English in the drama: ドラゴン桜 (Dragon Zakura). It's like taking a drama class and a language class together. I think that just taking a drama class in Japanese, by itself, would be more fruitful.

[ファブリス]

It's 2009 and western science is so totally nowhere when it comes to understand the mind and its potential.

I'm not too surprised by this although I never heard of it before. We all have positive and negative beliefs that constantly affect every thought and every action. This is undeniable. Language learning is difficult for a lot of people, and particularly for languages like Japanese with all that stigma attached to it "Japanese is difficult" "Kanji, ahaaahh run run!!!". So I'm not going to defend that method in particular the YouTube video seems a little over the top, but I don't see anything voodoo or risible about it personally, it makes sense. The question is how would you consistently lower people's negative beliefs to make a method work 100%?

Some people might want to try "tapping" themselves with EFT for example, before tackling on language learning. There are probably interesting results in there too. EFT is another of those methods that will attract laughs and yet, it does give results for a lot of people.