Top 10 NLP tips for teachers

Photo by Jason Sung on Unsplash

Judy Bartkowiak NLP Trainer and Master Practitioner

1. There is no failure only feedback

Feedback is the nature of the response we get from the class, an individual child, parent, a colleague or the Head. It can be a verbal comment, body language, an email or phone call. The feedback can be directly to you, overheard or passed on to you. The problem is not the feedback itself; the problem is how we react to it. So how can we as teachers improve the nature of the feedback we give?

One of the best ways is to use ‘clean’ language free of generalisations, deletions and distortions.

1) Generalisations

Words like ‘always’, ‘never’, ‘everyone’, ‘no-one’ are generalisations. They can’t possibly be true and there is richer feedback in looking at the exceptions. Focus on the positive and point out that when they did x the result was excellent rather than the many times they did not and the result was disappointing.

Another classic example of a generalisation is ‘I can’t…’ either verbalised or when the thing they think they ‘can’t do’ is avoided. Some children give up before they start a lesson because they ‘can’t’ do maths. This is a choice we make to ‘not be able to do’ something. It is the same in self-talk. Have you ever thought ‘I can’t teach that class’ or ‘I can’t get this child to listen’ but what if you could?

2) Deletions

We need to give detailed examples so children learn from feedback. Simply saying ‘You’ve worked much better this term’ or ‘I’m pleased with your progress’ deletes the important detail about specifics. When giving feedback, be armed with plenty of precise examples to demonstrate the behaviour you want to focus on and encourage.

3) Distortions

There are three different ways we can distort communication

· Assumptions – when we assume someone else’s feelings such as ‘You must feel pleased with your test result’. Although it may seem like a reasonable assumption it is more respectful to ask the question. Maybe they were aiming for a higher mark?

· Mind reading – this is predicting the future. An example of this would be saying ‘You’ll do well in your exams’. Again it is better to ask than mind read.

· Cause and effect – no-one can make you feel a particular way. That is your choice alone. Putting the responsibility for your feelings onto a child or a colleague is a distortion. An example of this would be ‘You make me very cross when you talk in the lesson’. Instead own your feelings and say ‘I feel very cross when you talk in the lesson because…..’ and go on to explain why this is.

2. If you try, you won’t succeed

How many times a day do we ask children to ‘try’ to do something? We remember perhaps our own parents urging us to ‘just try your best’. Yet there is built-in failure in the word ‘try’. Notice when you use this word and reword your sentence without the word ‘try’ so children will be more motivated. ‘Try’ presupposes they will find it difficult so they are expecting to give up on the exercise more quickly than if your expectation was that they could do it.

Imagine there are two boxes in front of you and I ask you to pick up the first one. You will pick it up quite easily because you assume it must be light. Now I ask you to ‘try’ and pick up the other. Immediately you expect the other box to

be heavier and you may have difficulty picking it up. If I then said, ‘try hard’ or ‘just try it’, I am emphasising the difficulty and you may look at it wondering how heavy it is and even consider asking for help. In fact the boxes are the same weight. The only difference is our expectations of how heavy the second box is.

You will sometimes be presenting harder exercises and children may find them difficult so present the exercise as something they can do rather than something they can’t do and will need to ‘try’. There is an element of struggle about the word ‘try’ which is not enabling in a teaching environment. Just ask them to ‘do it’.

When children in your class respond with the word ‘try’ such as ‘Well I’ll try and do it’ or if you ask them to behave and they say ‘I’ll try’. Your resourceful and encouraging response is ‘You know you can do it’.

I asked a child recently what his goal was for the new term. He said ‘I’m going to try not to get into trouble this term’. This is not going to work.

Firstly, using the word ‘try’ means he already expects to get into trouble so it won’t be long before he does.

Secondly, his goal is an ‘away from’ goal in that he is aiming for avoiding something rather than having a positive ‘towards goal’ of achieving something.

Thirdly, he is focussing on what he doesn’t want rather than what he does want. What you focus on is generally what you get. So we reworded his goal as about listening to what his teacher asks him to do and doing it quickly and quietly. We also discussed ways to make friends with his classmates so he would feel happier and more secure.

3. You already have the resources to do whatever you want to do

A core principle of NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming) is that we already have all the resources we need to do whatever we choose to do. Over the course of your teaching career and in your private and social life you will have accumulated a huge resource of skills; patience, focus, intuition, clarity, resourcefulness and many others too numerous to itemise. Sometimes however we trap the skill and categorise it within one of the many roles we play in life. We are inclined to forget that we have that skill already because perhaps we haven’t used it enough in our teaching life.

Think about each of the roles you play, the activities you take part in and the social groups you interact with. Make a list down the left hand side of a piece of paper.

Now alongside each one, write down what you are good at when you are in that role. Do you make your friends laugh when you are out with them? Are you good at showing people another angle on a problem? Are you a good listener? Make a note of the skills you have in each area of your life.

Now with these two columns complete; look at each of the skills and ask yourself,

‘What does that also mean I can do?’ write this down in the third column.

For example, I knew a teacher who could do a forward walkover (she used to be a dancer in Pan’s People!) which meant that she was flexible in her body and also in her approach to teaching. It is not an automatic assumption but look for how you can take the skill from one area and apply it to another for a positive result.

How can you use this list?

When you are struggling in the classroom or indeed in the staffroom,

o identify the skill you need

o think about when and where you had that skill

o ask yourself, what was the belief you had that enabled you to use that skill

take on that belief now in order to access the skill.

Some people find it easier to do this exercise using a Time Line. Here is the process.

1) Imagine a line on the floor stretching from the past to the future.

2) Stand on a point that for you represents today.

3) Think about the problem or issue you want to address.

4) Decide on the skills you need to do this effectively.

5) Now look back along the line and identify a point in your past when you demonstrated that particular skill.

6) Stand on that point and recall exactly what you did that demonstrated it most.

7) Anchor it by making an action such as squeezing your earlobe as the memory becomes most vivid. Repeat this a few times to make a strong association.

8) Now return to today’s point on the timeline and acknowledge that you do have the skill you need.

When you need it in the classroom or staffroom, use your anchor to bring the skill to where you need it now.

4. If you always do what you’ve always done then you will always get what you’ve always got

This phrase had an amazing impact on me when I first heard it. Suddenly I realised that I could influence the results I got and that I had some control over what happened in my life.

Say it over to yourself slowly – “If I always do what I’ve always done then I will always get what I’ve always got.”

What it means is that if you don’t like ‘what you’ve always got’ you can change what you do and get something different, better. You can get better results by doing something else.

Now if you’re perfectly happy with the results you’re getting in the classroom and at home with your family then that’s great. This phrase simply serves as a reminder then that what you are doing is working to give you the results you want. That may be enough for you.

However, if you think that you could get better results – and by that I don’t just mean academically but also in terms of engagement with the lesson, attendance, quality of participation and so on – then think about what you could do differently in order to get a different result.

You can’t make children listen, make them engage or make them want to learn in fact although you can ask children to do something, you can’t make them.

So if you want to change their behaviour and that includes attitude and language patterns, you need to change your own.

We do what we do (our behaviour) because of the beliefs we have about that behaviour. How we do it, our skills, are also based on beliefs. In a nutshell, if we want to do something different to get a different result we have to change our underlying beliefs.

What beliefs do you have about what you do? Write them down and think about whether a belief you hold could be flexible. Being flexible gives you more options. Beliefs are not the same as values. You could change a belief and still maintain your values about what you do but do it differently.

Some beliefs limit your choices. Make a note of 5 beliefs you hold about teaching the children in your class. Now look at each one and ask yourself, ‘How could I change this belief and do something different?’ We’re not talking

here about changing the fundamental values of a person here. Beliefs change quite organically as we experience different behaviours and results.

Be flexible today and do something differently and note the result. In NLP we talk about the TOTE principle which is Test – Operate – Test – Exit. This means testing out a different behaviour option, checking the result, test it again and then exit once you have the result you’re looking for.

5. If someone else can do it then you can too

Have you ever watched someone do something and thought to yourself ‘Wow I wish I could do that!’? It could be the way they interact with the class or their computer skills or it could be how they negotiate or gain rapport. Whatever it is – you want it, yes?

Now let me tell you first that the reason you noticed the skill in the other person is because you have it too, otherwise you wouldn’t have observed it at all. You may not have the skill to the same extent or perhaps you use that skill somewhere else in your life and don’t apply it to your teaching role.

So right now, think of that skill you have noticed in one of your teaching colleagues and write it down. Now look at what you’ve written because the chances are that what you’ve written is a bit vague and woolly. Maybe you’ve written down ‘I like the way Jenny gets all the children involved in her singing class.’ That is not precise enough for us to work with. Observe her and notice what exactly she says and does to get that result. Of course you want the result but you first need the underlying belief and the behaviour that it drives.

Watch Jenny’s (we call her the model in this situation) body language, how does she use her eyes, her head movements, her arms? Given that she has her back to the class playing the piano she has to make her upper body work.

Listen to her tone of voice, pace and volume; how is that having an effect on the class engagement? What about the actual words she uses and the material she has for the class, how is that part of the picture?

You should now have some more precise skills to model to get the result you want. List these and then think about how you already have those skills and how you can model them.

You can practise the movements and the voice at home and you will soon have them as part of your repertoire. The part you won’t have is the underlying belief. That part you need to get from your model.

Find out what your model believes about what they do in the classroom, what is going on in their mind before they take the class and during the class itself. You can tune into that belief and use it instead of the belief you usually use in that situation.

This is also a very powerful classroom exercise because children learn from each other and will realise that they each have something they can model and pass on to their friends. It builds self esteem and mutual respect.

Modelling is a great skill as it means you can be whatever you choose to be and model for others what they want to acquire from you. Apply it to every part of your life as ongoing personal development.

6. The map is not the territory

We experience the world through our five senses; sight, hearing, touch, smell and taste. Every second, two million bits of information bombard our unconscious mind yet our conscious mind can only cope with about 7. So how do we get from 2 million down to 7? What we do is filter the inputs.

How we filter them will depend on our beliefs and values, what is important to us individually and where we put our attention. Our filter will also be determined by our life experiences, our social and cultural background and in this context, our teaching experience.

So you can imagine that for each one of us, the 7 bits of information that form our own map will reflect the territory (the 2 million available bits of information) very differently.

Your map will be very different from that of the children in your class but their maps will probably be fairly similar to each other which is why when they all laugh at something they find funny in the lesson, you feel excluded.

If you’ve had years of teaching the same year group you probably have a very good insight into their map but if you haven’t and you’re teaching a new year

group this term, enter their territory by stepping into their shoes and seeing it from their viewpoint.

Use metaphors to increase your understanding of their map. As you know, a metaphor is when we describe the problem situation in terms of an unrelated experience and by so doing, see the situation in a different light that enables us to have clarity.

Here’s an example of how to use clean questions and metaphors.

Teacher: What’s learning French like?

Child: It’s confusing like when you get lost in the supermarket for a moment and wonder where your mum is.

Teacher: Confusing, like getting lost in the supermarket? Child: Yes like you don’t know which aisle to go down.

Teacher: You don’t know which aisle to go down?

Child: Well you could go down one but it could be wrong and you’d get more lost.

Teacher: It could be wrong and you could get more lost?

Child: So you just stand still and hope your mum comes back for you because it’s less scary to do nothing.

Teacher: You hope your mum comes back for you? Child: Or someone to tell me where my mum is.

Using the metaphor you have a great insight into how this child’s map works and why she doesn’t answer questions in your French lesson. What she needs are some signposts. She needs to feel safe and have some options. Not doing anything seems safer because she wants you to give her the answer and she won’t risk being further confused by giving the wrong one.

She needs to know that one of the answers in her head (aisles)is the right one and that if she thinks hard she may remember what you told her about that

grammar rule (her mother said she had to buy) and get the answer right (find her in that aisle).How pleased she would be and how much more confident.

7. Using Hypnotic Language (or soft language)

We’re clearly not talking here about putting our students into a trance-like state however tempting that might be sometimes! What we’re aiming for is language that will dive straight into the unconscious and bypass conscious blocks and limiting beliefs they may have about the material you’re presenting.

There are several different forms

1) Presuppositions

Here we are assuming compliance. Instead of asking students to do something we assume they will do it. This bypasses the process of them deciding whether or not they want to do what you ask. An example of this would be ‘when you have all walked quietly to the IT room, I have something interesting to show you there’.

Another variation on this is ‘mind reading’ so ‘I know you are all going to really enjoy this lesson’.

And another is the ‘double bind’ when you give students the perception of choice but limit the choices to two things, either of which you are willing to agree to but not offering the choice of not doing it at all. An example of this would be, ‘shall we do the test at the beginning of the lesson or at the end?’

2) Embedded questions and embedded commands

Here we ask an indirect question or make an indirect command embedded within a larger statement so that it is hidden. This way it is less confrontational, hence the description ‘softer’.

The structure of this is

FACT + FACT + FACT + EMBEDDED COMMAND + YES TAG

This is the Primary Times website (Fact),you are reading the 7^th top NLP Tip for teachers (Fact) and this one is about Hypnotic Language (Fact) so I’m sure

you’ll want to buy my book NLP for Teachers (Embedded Command) won’t you? (Yes tag)

The Yes Tag can be used successfully after pre-suppositions as well for example, ‘You will learn even more in this lesson about the fascinating Tudors, that will be enjoyable, won’t it?’ or ‘When you’ve put down your pencils to show me you’ve finished this maths sheet, we’ll have time for a quiz before break, you’d like that wouldn’t you?’

3) Quotes and Metaphors

Telling stories and quoting others is often a great way to encourage children to comply with your request and get their co-operation or commitment to learning something challenging. For example, ‘I was telling the Head that 4E is such a hard working class and so clever that they will be able to finish this maths sheet by the end of the lesson, you can do that , can’t you?’ (note the yes tag at the end).

Metaphors are when you liken one thing to something else such as suggesting that your class can file out of the classroom as quietly as mice. They can be useful to add humour and rapport for example, you could choose a TV character they like and suggest they could do something in that manner.

8. Goal setting

As teachers we encourage our children to set goals for themselves each term and we work with them to ensure that their goals are realistic. In sports too we aim to achieve new personal bests and in music, higher grades and so on. We usually use the SMART rules of goal setting: specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and timely. Here are the NLP guidelines on goal setting.

1) First and foremost goals need to be POSITIVE

Encourage your students to word their goals as ‘towards goals’ what they want to achieve rather than what they want to avoid. What do they want? It needs to be specific too so what mark do they want in the test or what book would they like to be able to read, what level book? What level maths book do they want to be on? Which times table do they want to know well?

2) How will they recognise when they have achieved it? What EVIDENCE do they need to have that have achieved their goal?

This could be that they show they have achieved the level or goal in a test or their report at the end of the term. Maybe they want to have the confidence to speak up in class or perform in a school play? What will other children and you their teacher see or hear them do that will demonstrate that they have achieved their goal?

3) When and where do they want to have this resource? What is the CONTEXT?

Ask children to think about which lessons they need to focus on and what skills they need to achieve this goal. Where do they already have the skills? Perhaps they need focus to achieve it or concentration. Where have you seen them demonstrate this skill, perhaps in another lesson, in PE or music or in the playground? How can they apply this skill to the context they need it in to achieve their goal?

4) The goal needs to be SELF ACHIEVABLE. They need to have the ability to achieve the goal themselves.

They cannot have a goal that relies on others. For example, they have no control over getting the top mark in a test because it relies on others to get lower marks than them. They also cannot have a goal to win a race for the same reason.

Arguably they will be relying on you for support in achieving their goal but ultimately it will be their work and commitment to the goal that will ensure they achieve it.

5) What will be the ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES of achieving it?

Whilst the advantages of achieving their goal will be obvious in terms of enhanced self esteem, sometimes the disadvantages are less obvious. Children sometimes get labelled ‘geeks’ by others in the class when they do well and they may separate themselves from their peers by getting higher marks or becoming more confident. How can they still achieve their goal whilst avoiding the disadvantages that could sabotage their efforts?

6) What is the BENEFIT of this outcome?

By achieving their goal, what benefit will they obtain? What will become available to them that was not before? What values do they have in life that will be met by achieving their goal? How worthwhile will it be? What negative feeling will they no longer have?

9. Do you know your VAK?

VAK stands for Visual, Auditory and Kinaesthetic which are the main three NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming) representational systems or ways of processing the inputs we get.

There is a magic number - 7+ or -2 - that is the number of bits of information that people could deal with so from the millions of available bits of information to us at any point in time, we each filter them differently to arrive at about 7 pieces of information and they are unlikely to be the same 7. This makes our own map unique to us and we should be aware that other people’s map is not the same as ours.

Visual children will notice what they see, what you give them to read as hand-outs, what you write on the white board or screen and what you show them.

Auditory children will listen attentively and notice what you say and what is said by others in the class. They will be more musical and enjoy sounds and lessons with question and answer sessions and singing.

Kinaesthetic children learn more by doing. They tend to be fidgety and active, keen on PE and active lessons, sporty and enthusiastic in practical lessons where they can do experiments or interactive computer learning.

Although children will at times use all 3 systems at different times in the school day, they will have a preference for one of them and that will be their ideal learning system.

When you are teaching it is impossible to attend to each child’s needs individually so when presenting teaching material do it using all 3 representational systems. Give them the material visually, talk them through it and be ready to work through an example with the kinaesthetic children.

Most schools have adopted a phonetic spelling method which works well for auditory children but not for visual children who cannot work out why words that sound the same look so different. For them, spelling lists need to be organised and learnt visually so that words that look the same are together even if they sound different.

Be aware of your own preference because if you always present your lessons using

visual language such as ‘do you see what I mean?’ ‘let’s look at another example’

and so on, your auditory and kinaesthetic children will have more difficulty following

you as they need to translate into their own ‘language’. Ideally use three ways each

10. Let’s end with a SWISH

Wouldn’t it be great if we could teach students how to change their own behaviour or negative responses? We can do this using the SWISH technique from our NLP toolbox.

1) First we need to find out what the trigger factor is. What prompts the negative response? Is it something we say such as ‘today we’re going to have a test’ or when we ask them a question in class? Is it something they see such as double maths on their time-table or finding that they have to work with someone they don’t much like or don’t know? Identify the unwanted behaviour or response and the trigger.

It is important to know what pay off they get for the unwanted behaviour. What is the positive intention? In NLP we know that there is always a positive intention and it is our challenge to find it in their map of the world when it isn’t obvious in ours. Perhaps their unwanted behaviour makes their friends laugh or gets a reaction from you?

2) Now ask them how they’d prefer to respond. What would be the desired behaviour? Will they still be able to meet their positive intention or another different positive intention using the new response? Suggest they get an image in their mind of themselves doing the desired behaviour. What will they look like, sound like and feel like?

3) Check for the ecology. Are there any pitfalls or disadvantages of the desired behaviour? Are they worried they might not be ‘cool’ amongst their friends? Can they still achieve this ‘cool’ with their new behaviour in some way?

4) Now ask your student to imagine himself doing the usual unwanted behaviour and picture it like a film with Hollywood effects, the colour,

actors, music and great sound. He should not be in the picture, he can have whatever actor he chooses to play him.

5) Tell him to put the image of him doing the new behaviour in the bottom right hand corner of the screen as you might if you’re checking what’s on another TV channel. This time he is in the picture as himself.

6) Explain that when you tell him to Swish he is to make a movement like swatting a fly from his face and when he does that he will switch the images so the new behaviour is the big frame with the unwanted behaviour very small in the corner.

7) Repeat the steps a few times until he can do this himself and can use it whenever he needs to replace unwanted behaviours or responses.

Use this yourself for your own unwanted responses as well! Once you get practised at this, you will have a great anchor for your desired state.

‘Engaging NLP for Teachers’ available from my website bookshop judybartkowiak.com or Amazon

You can book a workshop or individual sessions at my website

Paid subscribers can request a free copy of the book ‘Engaging NLP for teachers’ by messaging me with their address.