This week, we talked about NLP’s core concepts, such as submodalities, anchoring, sensory

acuity, rapport (as we are familiar with these two concepts from NLP’s four pillar) and perceptual
positions, someone else’s shoes, metaprograms, modeling, sensory language, reframing, teaching
pronunciation and our own experiences.
Firstly, submodalities mean exploring our imagination and how we remember things, through a
picture, a sound or sensation. We are different from each other and our imagination will be different.
The images that come to our mind when we hear a word will be different, too. By submodalities we
change what that thought means and this change affects how we feel about those things. For this topic,
we shared our experiences with each other. We talked how we remember things when we hear a word.
Secondly, anchoring means changing our state of mind or mood easily by using some techniques,
making deliberate connections between a state of mind an action, a sound or a picture. This can help us
finding our resources when we need them. Again we shared our own experiences. For example we
talked that a song or a smell can be a trigger for our memory. Another example, we can remember a
certain person through music. For our teaching implications, we mentioned that we can establish some
classroom anchors for an effective communication, such as determining a hand act for expressing ‘’ I’m
done with my work.’’, determining a penalty box for making them understand they are doing sth wrong
when I am going to this place, determining a praise spot for making them understand I am going to
praise sb/sth when I am going to this place. All these anchors may help us for creating an effective
communication atmosphere.
Thirdly, we talked about sensory acuity. Sensory acuity means noticing the nonverbal messages,
such as body language, eye movements. We should be aware of the signals given with our body
language and make sure they are the signals we want to give. We should observe the others in order to
be good at getting into rapport with other people. We should observe our learners’ nonverbal signals to
respond them accordingly. We should do sth about the thing that we sense wrong to make it right.
Fourthly, we talked about rapport. Rapport means maximizing similarities and minimizing
differences. Rapport is the key of successful and effective communication. We should find sth in
common, similar to communicate with our learners in an effective way. We should emphasize on similar
things, we shouldn’t focus on differences. Like what Carl Rogers said, we should create personal
relevance for learning in our learners. We talked about matching and mirroring. Matching means doing
the same thing with the same part of the body as the other person does. Mirroring means using the
opposite side of our body as in a mirror. These two techniques may help us dealing with a problem with
one of our learners. If one of the learners is doing sth unsuitable we can respond to him/her as s/he does
like matching, s/he will get s/he is doing sth wrong/ weird; s/he will understand s/he change her/his
position. We should observe and do sth when the class starts to get tired or discontent.
 Fifthly, we talked about perceptual positions. Perceptual position is all about seeing sth in our way
and seeing it in the other people’s way. We should be aware of that different positions give us different
information; it is all about approaching to a problem through the other ways. By doing this, we can
create an effective communication. The first position is to experience sth from our own point of view.
We should teach strength, calm confidence; we should meet our own needs, not by being selfish, but by
taking our needs into consideration. The second position is to experience sth from the other person’s
point of view. We should make empathy by being a strong enough leader. The third position is to
experience the relationship between first and second position from outside, neutral, nonjudgmental
observer. We should observe all of our learners objectively. It is related to rapport and an effective
communication. When we are observing them neutrally, we shouldn’t be seen as ‘’cold’’. We did an
activity about it. We had three chairs, one of them is ME chair, the other one is YOU; the last one is
OBSERVER chair. We shared our problems and we sat down the chairs and gave our reasons why I
thought I was right. I liked it very much. Because it taught me I should see the things by thinking the
other ways. To be specific, it told me that you can never be right all the time when you are the one who
is speaking on the other chairs even if you say I looked the other ways, ideas or reasons of others into
consideration you can never be the one who is right even if you sit on the observer chair. When I was
sitting on the observer chair, I understood I didn’t see the problem and reasons objectively. It taught me
I should be objective when I come across a problem, at least I should try even if I won’t be. Because it
told me that if you don’t do this, you will regret your reactions one day.
Sixthly, we talked about metaprogram. Metaprogram is to understand ‘’why we do what we do’’.
Metaprogram is all about realizing what motives us and what will motive our learners and how we can
affect this process and how we can learn their motivations. Metaprogram depends on background
information, motivation we have. As teachers, we should be aware of that our ss are totally different and
different things will motive them. We should know our learners’ needs, background and motivations.
Also we talked about some basic metaprograms. As far as I understood, I am both a reactive and a
proactive person, it depends on the situation. I am an external person. I have an option/ B plan program;
but sometimes I do what I know. I see the big picture; but I don’t miss the necessary details.
Then, we mentioned modeling. Modeling is to study for excellence. As we become a teacher and
ss generally take us as their models, idols; we should observe and model excellent teacher. At least we
should show that we are trying. Our discourse and our action should be in parallel. We should make ss
share and try out strategies they learn. We should present options which can help their language learning
process. We should know learner training. ‘’Modelling excellent leads to excellence.’’
We talked about NLP language, sensory language. The language people use shows how they
experience the world. For example, a person, who says I see, I get the picture, sth like that, uses visual
language and s/he experiences the world through pictures. If a person says’’ I hear you, it doesn’t sound
right’’, s/he experiences the world auditorily. A person using ‘’it doesn’t grab me’’ is a kinesthetic
person.
We talked about reframing. Reframing means changing words, changing minds. Reframing is to
rename, re-label things in order to alter our perception of them. It says that the language you use matters,
really matters; you should pay attention to your language. Reframing can be actualized like that cosy-
bambam means homework; ending means new beginning; mistake means lesson/feedback. When should
use a positive language. ‘’Language, the loaded weapon.’’
When we come to ‘’teaching pronunciation’’, we talked about our teachers concrete pronunciation
mistakes and its reasons. Maybe they don’t want to seem like weird, maybe they don’t know the correct
way or they may not know how to teach it; but we know that as a teacher I have to be model, my ss tend
to imitate me and if I don’t teach the right way, this will affect the next generations which my ss have an
influence on, I can’t take this responsibility, I have to be in front of the people, so I should pay attention
to my pronunciation.
We talked about fossilization. It means the way that our learners learned a word’s pronunciation
wrong and we can’t change it. In order to destroy this, we should try to pronounce and teach a word
correctly. We mention pronunciation issues at first. Is perfection or intelligibility much more important?
We tried to answer this and we came to mutual intelligibility. Mutual intelligibility is to be able to
understand sb as well as to being understood. Mutual intelligibility is important; at the same time, as a
teacher in academic meaning since we are their models, we have to be pretty good at pronunciation. We
should aim to intelligibility. It should be the prime goal in teaching pronunciation. We should care the
identity issues. It means to be afraid of getting away their own identity while speaking as a native. We
should know what to teach; sounds, stress and intonation, and when to teach. We should pay attention to
how they hear and how they speak. The main reason of ‘’what they hear’’ problem is the lack of hearing
the pronunciation of the words. When they hear correctly, they are on the way to being able to speak
correctly. We should pay attention to ‘’ear training’’: how they hear the words, how the sounds come.
This is the answer for the problem what ss can say. It requires practice and patience. The more you
practice, the better you pronounce. Because we know practice makes perfect. The intonation problem is
all about the sentence rise and fall. We should make them be aware of specific intonations in a sentence,
so that we can help them improving their pronunciation. We should offer them some ways/options
which make them be exposed to language, such as watching English movies, recording their own
pronunciation, rehearsing in front of the mirror.