Wednesday 26 September 2018

Woo watch: Baba Vanga

Baba Vanga
Baba Vanga was a blind Bulgarian mystic. She is quite well-known among people who are into the weird and wonderful world of 'parapsychology'. She's famous for her Nostradamus like predictions which had a '80% accuracy rate'. She is said to have predicted, among other things the 9/11 attacks, the election of a Black president and the 2004 boxing day Tsunami


Impressive stuff. Of course, like all good psychics there is quite a bit of artistic licence. And more importantly while the hits are counted, the misses are quietly forgotten. 2016 is over so we can say with some confidence that her prediction* that 'Europe will cease to exist' didn't come true (a good woo-master would somehow link this prediction to Brexit ). It's perhaps not surprising since she also predicted that 2010 would be when World War 3 started and that it would end in 2014, and that Muslims would wage war against Europe in 2013. So all in all, I don't think I'm being unfair when I say that we shouldn't take Baba Vanga very seriously. 


So what does Baba Vanga have to do with TEFL? The figure of 80% accuracy (60-70% here) in her predictions was reported by a group of scientists who worked for the Bulgarian institute of Suggestology and Parapsychology. The head of the institute was Georgi Lozanov who was the inventor of the TEFL method known as Suggestopedia

Lozanov said of Baba Vanga (source) "The stories about Vanga Dimitrova are not fantasies...She is extraordinarily talented....Vanga does read the future for those who go to her personally...she has psychic capabilities..." (p. 275). Lozanov also reveals that he has psychic power and was able to 'block' Vanga to some extent. (p. 276)

The genetic fallacy means we shouldn't write off an idea, just because of where it came from. However, in Lozanov's case I think we have been a bit too generous. The same research group which produced the amazing results on the effectiveness of suggestopedia also took a psychic seriously and produced 'scientific research' showing how effective a psychic she was. It isn't therefore that Lozanov had some whacky ideas but his research was solid. We have evidence that his research was extremely unreliable. 

SEAL - a lozanov inspired org.
All of this information was available in the 70's and yet Suggestopedia was generally treated fairly credulously. It receives serious coverage in works by Krashen, Larsen-Freeman, and many, many othersIn Tomlinson's 'Materials development in language teaching' a whole chapter is devoted to writing and grammar presentation in 'the Lozanov method.' The author Hansen, tells us that these days (1998) it's easier to understand here Lozanov was coming from since "quantum science has become more familiar" meaning we can perceive in "multidimensional" ways. Even today you can find published papers (here, here and here for instance) examining the effectiveness of the method and even the ELTJ recently had an article citing Lozanov

Baba Vanga died in 1996 but almost every year an article appears talking about one or more of her predictions and trying to link it to some current eventLozanov died in 2012 but his influence lives on in suggestopedia courses, books and in articles. Usually defenders of Suggestopedia say we should take the 'good stuff' and leave the rest. I suppose we could do that with Vanga too. I don't believe in seeing into the future or magic powers but suggestopedia does seems to have something of a charmed life and I don't predict that changing any time soon. 



*difficult to find reputable sources for these claims. Webpages tend to vanish when things don't come true

3 comments:

  1. I had to read this post twice to understand the link between Baba Vanga and Suggestopedia, but if I've understood correctly, that the theory of Suggestopedia is about as credible as Baba Vanga, than I have to agree. The first time I'd heard of the teaching technique, I actually laughed out loud. I think it's about as ridiculous as "The Silent Way" technique and I don't understand how so many people support it.

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    1. hi, thanks for the comment.
      I'll have to work a bit harder on clarity in the future but yes, you got what I was going for. It is curious how it was (is?) taken so seriously, isn't it?

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  2. I found it really amusing the way in which proponents of the teaching method of suggestopedia also take the predictions of Baba Vanga just as seriously. I suppose the one thing they have in common with each other is that they both fall into the realm of pseudo-science and lack scientific backing!

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