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assimilated in suggestopedic instruction than in instruction by other methods of language teaching such as audio-visual, audio-lingual and conventional (presumably grammar-translation) methods. In a basic suggestopedic course approximately 2000 items of vocabulary are taught in 96 lessons of instruction. This means that an average of 20.8 words are given per lesson. According to Lozanov (1978:322) the corresponding figures for traditionally taught courses are 7.0 words per lesson for audio-lingual courses, 5.55 for audio-visual courses, and 5.35 for conventional courses.

This data is simply given in a table (p.322) without further explanation, except that the figures were obtained from "official data". It appears therefore that this claim is not based on sound experimental research, but on observational data from an unknown source.

There is also no further description of the nature of the courses used in the comparison.

Lozanov's teaching was conducted under such favourable conditions that a comparison with traditionally taught courses can hardly be valid. Not only did the teaching take place in small groups, in pleasant surroundings and for several hours at a time, but students were also exceptionally motivated. According to Schiffler (1986a) suggestopedically taught students were selected from extensive waiting lists. Lozanov's own (1988) description of selection procedures suggests that students were also chosen according to psychological characteristics, in order to make groups as homogeneous as possible.

Lozanov provides no basis on which a valid comparison can be made about the volume of material assimilated by students taught at the Institute of Suggestology and that of students taught elsewhere. The term "assimilate", used by Lozanov to describe the learning process and possibly the learning outcome, is also difficult to interpret. Does this mean that students are able to use these materials in a meaningful way, or do they simply recognise or recall them? From the way that Lozanov describes the various tests given either the day after a suggestopedic session or at the end of the course (p.166, 203, 210), it is clear that these were translation tests, predominantly from the foreign language into the mother tongue. This form of testing gives information on students' recall only. Both Mans (1981) and Baur (1982) interpret this as a serious limitation of Lozanov's research.

Lozanov refers to hundreds of suggestopedic sessions in which between 100 and 1000 lexical items were presented to the students, and after which students were able to recall an average of 90% and more (p.166). However, we are only given sporadic information about the nature of the courses, the number and background of students involved or the length of the individual sessions. During the decade of experimentation at the Institute, Lozanov clearly had access to a vast pool of data regarding all aspects of the

suggestopedic teaching, and it is unfortunate that he reports this in such as haphazard and unsatisfactory manner. Scovel (1979:261) is quite justified when he points out Lozanov's inability to substantiate his speculations with empirical proof. On the basis of the

evidence which Lozanov provides in his 1978 publication, therefore, the above claim would be more soundly based were it rephrased in these terms: Highly motivated students, taught suggestopedically in small classes and in a pleasant environment, are able to recall exceptionally large amounts of materials.

2. Functional use of materials. Although language tests as described by Lozanov (1978:166, 203, 210) appear to be chiefly related to memory skills and passive knowledge of the language, he makes the following claims concerning the students' ability to handle the lexical items with which they have been presented in a suggestopedic course (1978:321-322):

(a) Students assimilate on average 90% of the 2000 lexical units presented.

(b) More than 60% of the vocabulary can be used actively and fluently in everyday conversation; the rest of the vocabulary is known at translation level.

(c) Students speak within the framework of the whole essential grammar.

(d) Any text can be read.

(e) Students can write with some mistakes.

(f) Students make some mistakes in speaking but this does not hinder communication.

(g) Pronunciation is satisfactory.

(h) Students are not afraid to talk to native speakers.

(i) Students are eager to continue studying the same language, if possible in the same way.

As discussed above, only the first and the second half of the second claim have been supported, at least on a limited basis, by Lozanov's experimental research. The other claims can only have been arrived at by means of the assessment of naturalistic data.

With the exception of the third and fourth claim, these claims are not really dramatic or sensational from an applied linguist's point of view, considering again that highly motivated students in small groups had almost 100 hours of intensive teaching with the addition of music and suggestion, which have been shown to be instrumental in improved learning. However, Lozanov provides insufficient background detail to allow a

satisfactory evaluation of these claims. It may be that such claims are indeed valid, but on the basis of Lozanov's (1978) reports, they must be treated with caution. They can at best be considered as items of anecdotal evidence.

3. Retention of materials. One of Lozanov's major interests was to test the retention rate of materials "assimilated" by the students over various periods of time. As a results of extensive tests, he claims that forgetting is minimal in Suggestopedia, and that retention is still exceptionally high after as long as 2 years after the original learning. Again, however, most results are simply listed in tables with no precise information on how tests were conducted. The initial assessment appears to have been based on the results of

written translations of lexical items presented at random the day after the suggestopedic sessions (p. 203), while the delayed assessment was taken at various intervals after an entire course had finished (p.213).There is no precise information, however, on which basis students were selected for the delayed tests or on the nature and conditions of this testing.

Results are provided in two formats. Either individual students are referred to, or the results of a group of students are given. Lozanov usually states the students' initial recall rate, their delayed recall rate, the time elapsed between the two tests and whether or not the students had reviewed the materials in the meantime. The tables do not give

information about how many words had been taught or tested in each instance. Lozanov lists results, which tend to be inconsistent, at random, and, without providing sufficient evidence of standard statistical analyses, makes claims regarding the statistical reliability of results. An example of this can be found on pages 213-215.

Table 21 (p.213) shows the "Percentage of Forgetting in Suggestopedic Memorization".

The results of 21 subjects are referred to. The data for 12 students, however, is incomplete. Of the rest, five students recalled 76.3% initially, 67.2% after 12 months without reading the materials and 79.6% after having read it again. The other four

students recalled 93.5% initially, 57.0% after 22 months without reading and 81.0% with reading. The selection of data in this table is surprising, considering that Lozanov had access to the initial recall of 416 subjects (p.205) whose average recall was given as 93.2% (p.204). A more interesting selection would have been to re-test as many subjects as possible from that sample at random after several intervals of time each.

Lozanov, however, refers to individual results instead, such as that of B.A. who took part in an experiment in which students were presented 1000 words in a single session

(p.213). B.A. recalled 98% initially, 53.3% after 20 months without reading and 73%

with reading. Without providing any evidence of relevant statistical analyses, Lozanov then goes on to say: "The large number of words on which the experiment with B.A. was based, as well as the great differences between the percentages in the comparisons we made, ensures quite high statistical reliability" (p.214). How this claim is to be

interpreted cannot be ascertained from the data provided.

Lozanov then gives a graphic representation of the "Reproduction of suggestopedically memorised material" (p.214), which shows that initial recall is around 90% and delayed recall after 24 months around 57%. The source for this data, however, is not discussed.

Lozanov also provides examples of 44 subjects who obtained an average of 85% on delayed tests up to 16 months after the initial learning (p.215), and goes on to say that

"the tendency was always towards a delayed deterioration in the retention of material"

(p.215). Immediately following this statement, however, he provides a table with the results of 10 students whose average initial recall was 99.4% and whose delayed recall after 3 years with either little or no review of materials was 99.2%. This last figure appears to be substantially inflated when compared to all the other figures Lozanov reports for the delayed recall tests.

As a result of his experimentation, Lozanov observed a radical deviation from the

classical curve of forgetting provided by Ebbinghaus (p.214), in which one hour after the memorisation only 48% of material is recalled which deteriorates to 28% after 48 hours.

Since Ebbinghaus experimented with nonsense syllables, Lozanov carried out an

experiment with 133 subjects learning nonsense syllables in order to provide a more valid comparison. The experiment was conducted in three conditions, each varying according to lists learnt, testing procedures and subject numbers. The study is again poorly

described (pp.216-217) and results are given in Figure 30 (p.217). The average recall of the first condition (15 subjects) is given as 90% immediately after memorisation, 80%

after 4 hours, 85% after 24 hours and 85% after 48 hours. The corresponding figures for the second condition (40 subjects) were 55%, 45%, 45% and 45%, and for the third (3 groups of 26 subjects, not tested after 48 hours), 58%, 42% and 58%. It is interesting to note that the difference in results between conditions 1 and 2 is more dramatic than the difference between condition 2 and the Ebbinghaus results. Lozanov does not refer to these differences but concludes rather obscurely:

In the three variants of this experiment, a tendency to form a reminiscent type reproductiveness curve was noticeable, i.e., in subsequent checks students tended to reproduce more and more of the material presented, and delayed reproduction approached reproduction in the immediate check.

(p.218)

Although it is impossible to ascertain the validity of Lozanov's results on the basis of the data provided here, the radical deviation from the Ebbinghaus curve is often referred to in advertising for commercial language courses.

Again, it is unfortunate that Lozanov made such poor use of large amounts of data regarding delayed recall. Although there is some indication in his reports that recall may be exceptionally high, both 24 hours after presentation of materials and in some cases even after 2 to 3 years, it is impossible to make definite claims about the extent of students' recall ability over time on the basis of the data provided. The most consistently supported finding appears to be that the mean recall rate of suggestopedically taught students after 24 hours is indeed around 90% which may decline to around 57% after a period of two years. Again, this finding is not as dramatic as it may appear at first when we consider that highly motivated adult students were required to translate language items predominantly from the foreign language into their mother tongue. There is also no precise information about what use students made of the language in the period between testing.

4. Physiological and psychological benefits. In order to test whether the high results