The Silent Way

The  Silent Way is a  language-teaching method created by  Caleb Gattegno that makes extensive use of silence as a teaching technique. It is not usually considered a mainstream method in language education. [1] 

Invented: 1963
It was first introduced in Gattegno's book  Teaching Foreign Languages in Schools: The Silent Way in 1963. [2]  Gattegno was skeptical of the mainstream language education of the time, and conceived of the method as a special case of his general theories of  education.

How to use it
Just as the name implies, silence is a key tool of the teacher in the Silent Way. From the beginning levels, students do 90 percent or more of the talking.[20]  Being silent moves the focus of the classroom from the teacher to the students,[21]  and can encourage cooperation among them.[13]  It also frees the teacher to observe the class.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-FOOTNOTELarsen-Freeman200063_9-2" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[9]  Silence can be used to help students correct their own errors. Teachers can remain silent when a student makes a mistake to give them time to self-correct;<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-FOOTNOTELarsen-Freeman200062_13-5" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[13]  they can also help students with their pronunciation by mouthing words without vocalizing, and by using certain hand gestures.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-FOOTNOTELarsen-Freeman200062.2C_69_22-0" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[22]  When teachers do speak, they tend to say things only once so that students learn to focus their attention on them.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-FOOTNOTELarsen-Freeman200063_9-3" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[9]

<p style="margin-top:0.4em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:19.1875px;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:sans-serif;">The teacher uses silence for multiple purposes in the Silent Way. It is used to focus students' attention, to elicit student responses, and to encourage them to correct their own errors. Even though teachers are often silent, they are still active; they will commonly use techniques such as mouthing words and using hand gestures to help the students with their pronunciation. Teachers will also encourage students to help their peers.

<p style="margin-top:0.4em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:19.1875px;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:sans-serif;">Silent Way teachers use specialized teaching materials. One of the hallmarks of the method is the use of Cuisenaire rods, which can be used for anything from introducing sim

<p style="margin-top:0.4em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:19.1875px;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:sans-serif;">ple commands to representing abstract objects such as clocks and floor plans. The method also makes use of color association to help teach pronunciation; there is a sound-color chart which is used to teach the language sounds, colored word charts which are used to teach sentences, and colored Fidel charts which are used to teach spelling.

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Activities
<p style="line-height:19.1875px;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:sans-serif;">In the Silent Way students are seen as bringing a vast amount of experience and knowledge with them to the classroom; namely, their first language. The teacher capitalizes on this knowledge when introducing new material, always building from the known to the unknown.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-FOOTNOTELarsen-Freeman200060.2C_63_14-0" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[14]  The students begin their study of the language by studying its sound system. The sounds are associated to different colors using a sound-color chart that is specific to the language being learned. The teacher first introduces sounds that are already present in the students' native language, and then progresses to sounds that are new to them. These sound-color associations are later used to help the students with spelling, reading, and pronunciation.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-FOOTNOTELarsen-Freeman200065_12-1" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[12]

<p style="margin-top:0.4em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:19.1875px;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:sans-serif;">The Silent Way uses a structural syllabus. The teacher will typically introduce one new language structure at a time, and old structures are continuously reviewed and recycled.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-FOOTNOTELarsen-Freeman200064_8-1" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[8]  These structures are chosen for their propositionalmeaning, not for their communicative value.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-FOOTNOTERichards198682_15-0" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[15]  The teacher will set up learning situations for the students which focus their attention on each new structure.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-FOOTNOTELarsen-Freeman200065_12-2" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[12]  For example, the teacher might ask students to label a floor plan of a house in order to introduce the concepts of inside and outside.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-FOOTNOTELarsen-Freeman200059_16-0" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[16]  Once the language structures have been presented in this way, learners learn the grammar rules through a process of induction.

<p style="margin-top:0.4em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:19.1875px;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:sans-serif;">A Silent Way classroom also makes extensive use of peer correction. Students are encouraged to help their classmates when they have trouble with any particular feature of the language. This help should be made in a cooperative fashion, not a competitive one. One of the teacher's tasks is to monitor these interactions, so that they are helpful and do not interfere with students' learning.

Materials
<p style="line-height:19.1875px;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:sans-serif;">The silent way makes use of specialized teaching materials: colored Cuisenaire rods, the sound-color chart, word charts, and Fidel charts. The Cuisenaire rods are wooden, and come in ten different lengths, but identical cross-section; each length has its own assigned color.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-FOOTNOTEStevick19742_20-1" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[20]  The rods are used in a wide variety of situations in the classroom. At the beginning stages they can be used to practice colors and numbers, and later they can be used in more complex grammar. For example, to teach prepositions the teacher could use the statement "The blue rod is between the green one and the yellow one". They can also be <p style="line-height:19.1875px;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:sans-serif;">used more abstractly, perhaps to represent a clock or the floor plan of a house.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-FOOTNOTELarsen-Freeman200069_24-0" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[24]

A Fidel chart for English; these charts are used to teach spelling.<p style="line-height:19.1875px;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:sans-serif;">The sound-color chart consists of blocks of color, with one color representing one sound in the language being learned. The teacher uses this chart to help teach pronunciation; as well as pointing to colors to help students with the different sounds, she can also tap particular colors very hard to help students learn word stress. Later in the learning process, students can point to the chart themselves. The chart can help students perceive sounds that may not occur in their first language, and it also allows students to practice making these sounds without relying on mechanical repetition. It also provides an easily verifiable record of which sounds the students and which they have not, which can help their autonomy.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-FOOTNOTELarsen-Freeman200068_23-1" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[23]

<p style="margin-top:0.4em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:19.1875px;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:sans-serif;">The word charts contain the functional vocabulary of the target language, and use the same color scheme as the sound-color chart. Each letter is colored in a way that i

<p style="margin-top:0.4em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:19.1875px;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:sans-serif;">ndicates its pronunciation. The teacher can point to the chart to highlight the pronunciation of different words in sentences that the students are learning. There are twelve word charts in English, containing a total of around five hundred words.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-FOOTNOTELarsen-Freeman200069.E2.80.9370_25-0" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[25]  The Fidel charts also use the same color-coding, and list the various ways that sounds can be spelled. For example, in English, the entry for the sound /ey/ contains the spellings ay, ea, ei,eigh, etc., all written in the same color. These can be used to help students associate sounds with their spelling.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-FOOTNOTELarsen-Freeman200070_26-0" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[

<p style="margin-top:0.4em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:19.1875px;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:sans-serif;"> <h2 style="margin-top:0.4em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:19.1875px;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:sans-serif;">In action <p style="margin-top:0.4em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:19.1875px;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:sans-serif;">