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Rapid English Learning Via Total Brain Power

California-based teaching expert Gale Arnold has been using her "secret weapon" to teach eight Beijing-based children from different countries how to better communicate in English within one week a seemingly impossible task in that the language is not the mother tongue of any of them.

Her secret? Gale's theory is that everyone children included is gifted, and that it's a teacher's job to massage their talent into reality by getting them to properly use the left and right sectors of their brain to maximum effect.

Clinical and experimental evidence, she explains, show that the left hemisphere of the brain controls the right side of the body and a person's ability in speech, logic, linear thinking, sequences, the intellect, analytical ability, reading and writing. The right hemisphere embraces music, the emotions, intuition, creativity and abilities such as facial recognition.

Most people, however, tend to use only the left hemisphere, thus under-using its counterpart. Gale's task is to guide children as much as possible in using their brain's right hemisphere by use of the Georgi Lozanov learning method.

Bulgarian psychotherapist Lozanov's studies of the science of suggestion over the past 25 years are said to reveal that the two hemispheres, when used simultaneously, are highly "learning effective".

The Lozanov method is claimed to be a dynamic, stress-free technique which enables students to absorb large amounts of material in a short period. Used primarily to teach languages, the method works by tapping the mind's "reserve power". Lozanov claims his system accelerates language learning between five and 50 times when measured against conventional methods.

For example, memory retention is 80-percent greater over long periods in comparison with traditional methods where long-term retention is minimal. A typical student using the Lozanov method can, it is claimed, learn up to 200 words in daily three-hour classes, and as many as 2,000 words over a 25-day course.