The silent way

Silent Way originated in the early 1970s and was the brainchild of the late Caleb Gattegno. The
last line of Benjamin Franklins famo!s "!ote abo!t teaching and learning can be said to lie at
the heart of #ilent $ay. The three basic tenets of the a%%roach are that learning is facilitated if the
learner disco&ers rather than remembers or re%eats' that learning is aided by %hysical objects' and
that %roblem(sol&ing is central to learning. The !se of the word )silent) is also significant' as
#ilent $ay is based on the %remise that the teacher sho!ld be as silent as %ossible in the
classroom in order to enco!rage the learner to %rod!ce as m!ch lang!age as %ossible. *s far as
the %resentation of lang!age is concerned' #ilent $ay ado%ts a highly str!ct!ral a%%roach' with
lang!age ta!ght thro!gh sentences in a se"!ence based on grammatical com%le+ity' described by
some as a )b!ilding(block) a%%roach.
The objective of The Silent Way Method of language teaching is for st!dents to work as
inde%endent lang!age learners. The teacher s%eaks &ery little when !sing this method. The role
of the teacher is to draw the learners, attention to the way that they are going abo!t the act of
learning. The teacher facilitates the st!dents, disco&eries and hel%s the st!dents to gain insight
into the f!nctioning of the lang!age. -n order to !se this method some s%ecific materials are
re"!ired.
***A Sound/Color Wall Chart: made !% of different color rectangles in which each color
re%resents a %honeme or so!nd of the .nglish lang!age.
***Word Wall Charts: words are written !sing the same color code as the so!nd/color wall
chart s!ggests. These charts dis%lay the str!ct!ral &ocab!lary of the lang!age.
***Spelling Charts: These charts are referred to as the Fidel. They show the %ossible s%ellings
for each %honeme and they also !se the same color code as the so!nd/color wall chart.
***ods: these are cards containing so!nds which corres%ond to the so!nd/color wall chart.
These rods allow st!dents to create words !sing %honemes.
* %ointer sho!ld be !sed by the teacher to hel% g!ide the class as they &ocali0e the so!nds.
* %ointer can also hel% to teach which syllable has the stress on it by ta%%ing that syllable harder
than the others. This aids in the de&elo%ment of %ro%er %ron!nciation of words in the target
lang!age.
1. Sound/Color Chart: This is a chart which color codes and groups all the
phonemes present in the English language.
1. #%elling Chart2 This chart' also called the Fidel' shows the %ossible s%ellings for each
%honeme. The colors corres%ond with the so!nd/color chart.
3. #elf Correction Gest!res2 * teacher !sing this method of lang!age instr!ction co!ld de&ise a
gro!% of gest!res signaling st!dents to rethink their res%onse. For e+am%le a teacher might hold
his hands together and then bring them a%art to signal that a &owel so!nd sho!ld be longer or that
the word itself needs to be lengthened. * second signal might be ha&ing each finger on yo!r hand
re%resenting a word in a sentence 4first' second' third' etc.5 to indicate the st!dents need to attend
to a tro!ble s%ot.