Within SFI teaching, several municipalities in Sörmland have begun to work with suggestion therapy as an element in the lessons in recent years.
A pedagogy that has been criticized and praised but lacks scientific support.
Lessons can include singing, dancing and role-playing and the pedagogy is considered by the proponents to be extra good within SFI, Swedish for immigrants.
It is particularly good that the method is suitable for students who have a very small study background and are fluent in Swedish.
At SFI in Eskilstuna, 14 of 58 SFI employees have furthered their education in suggestion therapy.
More courage to talk
Students who have completed SFI education with suggestive elements in Eskilstuna have testified that they have gained more courage to speak, but the method requires more resources than other SFI teaching and you do not see any significant difference in grades or throughput.
Despite this, suggestion therapy is established at SFI and appreciated by teachers and the principal.
- You have fun and it gets a little easier.
There are many different parts of suggestion therapy that create variation in the classroom.
We see that the students do more, says principal Frida Flores.
- The suggestopedic method works very well with the school's other pedagogy.
"More research needed"
But according to her, it is difficult to compare the results of the method with other teaching.
Not least because many of the elements included in suggestion therapy are also natural elements in more conventional teaching, such as dialogues between students and reading aloud.
- There we might need to do more research and comparisons, says Frida Flores.
Follow a lesson at SFI in Eskilstuna in the clip above.