THE SILENT WAY

THE TEACHER IS SILENT

TEACHER'S ROLE

• Silence is the most demanding aspect of this method
• Teacher uses gestures,sound-color charts,word charts and "Cuisenaire rods" to elicit and shape student responses

ADVANTAGES

• Fosters cooperative learning between individuals

LEARNER ROLE

• They are expected to develope
• Independence
• Responsibility
• Autonomy

OBJECTIVE

• Students work as INDEPENDENT language learners.

CALEB GATTEGNO

GATTEGNO

• Recommends that the learner needs to;
• "Return to the state of mind that characterizes a baby's learning surrender"

THEORY OF LEARNING

• Silent way learners acquire "inner criteria".
• Students are expected to become INDEPENDENT,RESPONSIBLE and AUTONOMOUS

SILENCE

• Is a tool
• Helps to foster autonomy
• Teacher speaks,but only when neccessary
• Errors are important and essential to learning
• Student attention is a key to learning

SOUND CHART

• The sound-color chart consists of blocks of color,with one color representing one sound in the language being learned

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 indicates its pronunciation.

FIDEL

• Fidel is a set of charts presenting all the possible spellings of each sound of the language using the same color code as the Sound/color rectangle chart and Word charts.

CUISENAIRE RODS

• Are wooden
• Ten different lenghts
• Each lenght has its own assigned color.

POINTER

• Teacher uses the pointer to indicate a sound symbol for the students to produce.