As observed by William James, Richard Bandler, John Grinder and Robert Dilts, the movement or orientation of a person's eye, known as eye accessing cues or lateral eye movements, can indicate the nature of the person's cognitive process at that moment. For example, most individuals look up and to the left when remembering an image and up and right when forming a new image. If a person looks down right, the mental process is kinesthetic; down and left signals "self-talk" or an aural process. Have students ask questions specifically designed to trigger these various cues: for example, they might ask, "What color is the door of your house?" or, "What color are your mother's eyes?" to trigger an eye movement up and right. Have students discuss the results they see afterward. (See reference 1.)
By improving your students' sensory acuity, you can enable them to take in information and remember it more vividly. For example, a student with acute vision who notices all the information printed on a study sheet will have a better chance of accessing the information later on. Help your EFL students improve sensory acuity by creating test-like games. To sharpen visual acuity, for example, have students work in pairs. Half the students look at the classroom from a specific vantage point for several minutes and then close their eyes. Their partners then ask questions about the room, such as, "What color is the teacher's desk?" This project will not only sharpen sensory acuity, but it will force EFL learners to improve their listening skills without relying on seeing the speaker, a helpful skill for telephone usage. (See reference 2.)
For a variation on sensory acuity practice that sharpens question and answer skills, divide the students into groups of four. Have one person from each group turn his or her back on the other group members. The remaining members must each change one thing, but only one thing, about their appearance. Afterward, the fourth person turns back and tries to identify what has changed, asking a series of questions.
To help students recall difficult vocabulary words using neurolinguistic principles, first break them into pairs. In each pair, have one student sit with closed eyes and the other student read words from the vocabulary list. The students sitting with their eyes closed must actively picture the word in their minds' eyes. For each word, have the student imagine that the word grows much larger and pair it with a particular sound. After the neurolinguistic study session, have the students compete to see whose memory has improved the most. (See reference 3.)