What is The Silent Way?• Method of language teaching developed by Caleb Gattegno.

• Teacher while conducting a silent way class is silent most of the time.

• Focus of the method is student needs and student abilities.

• Teacher does not provide the knowledge.

• Students are supposed to make their own discoveries, gain their own insights into the functioning of the language.

Learning hypotheses underlying the method:• Learning is facilitated if the learner discovers or creates rather than remembers and repeats what is to be learned.

• Learning is facilitated by accompanying (mediating) physical objects.

• Learning is facilitated by problem solving involving the material to be learned (Richards and Rodgers 2001: 81)

Approach behind the Silent Way• Artificial approach to acquiring a second language.

• Natural approaches seen as misguided. • Processes involved in learning of first language and learning of second languages are radically different. We cannot learn another language in the same way as the first because we have acquired certain knowledge that changes the situations.

• Gattegno: Our proposal is to apply an artificial and for some purposes a strictly controlled approach, using materials constructed for this purpose. We will meet our students as people who already own much of what is needed to acquire a language and who have shown by the acquisition of their native tongue that they are endowed with mental powers that are, to say the least, sizeable. (Gattegno: )

The self of the learner and awareness • The self of the learner as the free creative energy which which has different attributes like imagination, patience, concentration, intelligence, sensitivity, action, perception, abstraction.

• Learning is successful if the self (the learner) is committed to language and that happens through intelligent awareness.

• Awareness - learners constant testing of powers to abstract, analyze, synthesize and integrate. The best environment for awareness is silence because it helps students to concentrate and stay alert.

The Silent Way in practiceObjectives• To give beginning-level students oral and aural facility in basic elements of the target language.

• Near-native fluency in the target language.

• Correct pronunciation and mastery of prosodic elements of the target language.

• To provide the learner with a basic practical knowledge of the grammar.

• Phonological and suprasegmental elements as a starting point in learning a language

• Vocabulary is the central domain of language learning and choice of vocabulary is highly important.

• The most important is “functional vocabulary -the most functional words of a language.

Syllabus• Structural syllabus - lessons are organized around gramatical items and related vocabulary.

• Language items are selected and arranged according to their grammatical complexity.

• The sounds are the base for more complex elements like vocabulary, sentences.

• Gattegno: “The system of sounds of the new language is the only common basis for all utterances in it whatever their purpose, so it must be given first place in the acquisition of a second language and mastered as soon as possible”

• Learners grasp the meaning through perception and involvement in linguistic situations.

• Teachers create and present linguistic situations trough the use of materials and learners have to discover how to use new language items within these linguistic situations. 

The role of a teacher• Teacher is supposed to remain silent as much as possible.

• Teacher is not there to provide the knowledge or the answers but to facilitate discovery and alertness

• Teacher must encourage the students to pay attention, to commit to the language and to use their language resources for initiating learning, absorbing and reacting to objects and situations presented to them.

• Silence is unique aspect and probably the most demanding, because it requires avoidance of modelling and assistance.

• Silence is a kind of pedagogical device that teacher uses to enable students the experience of relying on themselves

• Steps that teacher is expected to follow are also unique:

The role of a learner

• Learners have to develop responsibility for their own learning and they have to explore language by themselves.

• They have to concentrate on the language elements in order to formulate independent hypothesis about the rules in which language functions.

• When students create their own sets of meaningful language rules and concepts they test them out and learn from that experience even if they make mistakes.

• Errors as natural part of the process that indicate student alertness and attentiveness to the language.

• Learners develop their own inner criteria for correctness that enhances learning, responsability and independence.

• Learner becomes autonomous, active and responsible person that discovers language through exploratory, problem solving approach.

Materials

• Sound-colour chart: a wall chart made up of different coloured rectangles in which each colour represents a phoneme (sound) of the language. This chart enables students to work on fine distinctions in the phonetics and prosody of the language studied, both on the level of production and of listening and recognition.

• Word charts: consist of words that are written with the same colour code as the sound-colour chart, the sounds in each word corresponding in colour to the chart. The twelve charts display the functional vocabulary of the language containing about 500 words.

• Fidel chart: spelling chart that shows all the possible spellings for each phoneme and which uses the same colour code as the rectangle chart. The Fidel for English is a set of eight wall charts with lists of spellings for each of the rectangles on the sound-colour chart, coloured the same way as the rectangle.

• Rods: vary in length from one to ten centimetres, each length having its specific colour. They are used to create clear and visible situations that enable students to understand how a given concept is expressed in the language studied.. They can symbolize whatever words are being taught and be manipulated directly or abstractly to create sentences.

Typical lesson format• First part of the lesson focuses on the pronunciation. At beginners stages teacher will have to model the appropriate sound pointing to its symbol and colour, later he can just point to certain symbols and words and elicit student responses.

• After sounds they work on more complex language items. Teacher models an utterance by using rods to create the visual representation. Students are to discover the meaning and respond.

• When students have understood the meaning teacher has to create new linguistic situations.

“I don't teach them, I learn them.”

Gattegno