Educators are applying Symbolic Modelling in a number of ways. The following five examples from a range of contexts show how, with a little creativity, the use of student-generated (autogenic) metaphor and Clean Language is making a contribution in the field of education.

Learning is a highly complex process about which we know very little. But one thing we know for sure is that people learn in different ways. How can we have a sense of the way our students learn -- just by listening to what they say? A very practical approach is to take note of the metaphors in their language.

The article which follows was presented to the Teacher Development Special Interest Group Conference of the International Association for Teaching English as a Foreign Language (IATEFL) in November 1995. While the focus of the article is teaching it should be fairly easy to adapt the information for other contexts such as business, therapy etc.