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Title
“Suspension of Disbelief”* as a Pedagogical Technique
Presenter
Muhammad Bilal Anwar
Pakistan
Abstract
A language teacher must work on the imagination of the learner. Unless a teacher is successful in instigating the imagination of the learners of L2, the learners cannot develop ability to think about the objects so far unknown to him. Hence, teaching language is a two-forked process:
- to make the objects part of the learner’s imagination
- to relate words to the objects
To attain both the objectives, a class strategy, “Suspension of Disbelief” is required. This Coleridgean term implies that a teacher creates an imagined world inside the classroom. The learners get involved in the dream world of the imaginary story not only to think about the objects but also to recognize the words that describe those objects. By sharing the same “dream world” the learners enter into a democratic learning atmosphere.
* Suspension of disbelief is an aesthetic theory intended to characterize people's relationships to art. It was coined by the poet and aesthetic philosopher Samuel Taylor Coleridge in 1817 to refer to what he called "dramatic truth". It refers to the alleged willingness of a reader or viewer to accept as true the premises of a work of fiction, even if they are fantastic, impossible, or otherwise contradictory to "reality".
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