Using meditation when starting a class can be very helpful to both, teachers and students.
Of course, it depends on the people involved, their characteristics as individuals and the external context. But in general basis, when provided, starting a class with a short (5-10 min) guided meditation or visualization (very easy to find on YouTube), can trigger a very focalized lesson, enabling a less-mental connection towards learning through our body, that is our second mind. Our heartbeat transmits more information and in a much faster way to our subconscious memory than brain neurons.
It’s also a good warm up as it induces the student to start thinking in English in a deeper state of mind.
This is not something I came up with all of the sudden. There is a well-known learning method from the 70s, called Suggestopedia, that states learning is more efficient in a relaxed environment. Kind of a subliminal, automatic process that facilitates a faster metabolization of new inputs.
Nowadays we have internet to redefine and improve this or any other approach. The concept of community and horizontal working structures, present us with the opportunity to try out and share in a continuously evolving path. We need to allow students, and ourselves, to teach and be taught at the same time, positioning the teacher’s role as a mere coordinator of a multi-way knowledge transmission organicity.
I don’t have enough empirical information to postulate anything, and wouldn’t be trying if I had it. My intention is to share something that helps me.
Meditations and visualizations are full of positive affirmations about oneself, as well as in marketing consultancy, life is about mindset. The better we program it, the better we live.
Worst scenario: Practice a healthy habit. If a student agrees to try, be certain, it won’t be boring. Try to turn off teacher’s audio (in your mind), class doesn’t need to have anything to do with the meditation. Enjoy, you are getting paid to relax. Can many people say that?