The Silent Way

 Welcome back, now it's time to talk a little about The Silent Way, make yourself comfortable, and let me explain a little bit✌

This method was founded in the early 70´s by the mathematician and educator Caleb Gattegno. It is based on the premise that the teacher should be silent as much as possible in the classroom but the learner should be encouraged to produce as much language as possible. Language learning can be enhanced in three main ways:

•  Discovery rather than teaching
•   Problem-solving in the target language 
• The use of physical tools (Rods, realia, colorful flashcards)

The basic principle of this method is “Teaching must be subordinated to learning” which means that it should be related to the search for rules given to the student in the cognitive code approach.  

Characteristics:

• Start with familiar sounds
• Teachers help only if it´s necessary. Allow students to use their own Knowledge of language learning.
• The teacher takes a back seat. The more you help- the less they learn.
•  Use of physical objects.

 Some techniques that can be applied are:

• Sound – color chart
• Teacher´s silence
• Word chart
• Rods / Cuisenaire rods (sentence structure, storytelling)

A    Activity: 

      We used the rods on two occasions, the first time we made a house and the exercise was simple, each color was subject, verb, and complement, we created a figure and then removed the rods as we were forming the sentence.

 

     Then the second time we worked with the IPA symbols and we used the same rods to form an figure, we were going to do a mini-story, this time it was difficult because we had a phonemic list that we had to take into account. 

     

SWOT

S – You get used to the IPA symbols of the words, creativity.

W –  If you don’t have that much vocabulary you won’t be able to create sentences.

O – You are going to put your mind to work and expand your vocabulary and creativity.

T – Students can get stressed because they think too much with limited time. 

That's all for now, I hope this entry helps you to learn a little about the Silent Way. See you very soon! 😎