16 The Silent Way

The Silent Way is the name of a method of language teaching

devised by Caleb Gattegno (1911–1988). Gattegno's name is
well known for his revival of interest in the use of colored
wooden sticks called Cuisenaire rods and for his series Words
in Color, an approach to the teaching of initial reading in
which sounds are coded by specific colors. His reading
materials are copyrighted and continue to be marketed
through Educational Solutions Inc., in New York.

As applied to language teaching, a Silent Way lesson

progresses through a number of stages, beginning in a similar
way with pronunciation practice and then moving to practice
of simple sentence patterns, structure, and vocabulary. It is
based on the premise that the teacher should be silent as
much as possible in the classroom and the learner should be
encouraged to produce as much language as possible.
Elements of the Silent Way, particularly the use of color charts
and the colored Cuisenaire rods, grew out of Gattegno's
previous experience as an educational designer of reading and
mathematics programs.

Working from what is a rather traditional structural and

lexical syllabus, the Silent Way method exemplifies many of
the features that characterize more traditional methods, such
as Situational Language Teaching and Audiolingualism , with a
strong focus on accurate repetition of sentences, modeled
initially by the teacher, and a movement through guided
elicitation this gave It is interesting to speculate that one of
the reasons for the early popularity of the Silent Way in the
United States and its use in official US Foreign Officer and
Peace Corps training programs is that silence has been noted
to be a stronger inducement to verbalization among
Americans than for many other cultural groups. Americans are
said to think of communication as essentially a verbal
activity . Hence, they are uncomfortable with long periods of
silence .

Theory of language

1.A Considerable discussion is devoted to the importance of

grasping the “spirit” of the language, and not just its
component forms. By the “spirit” of the language Gattegno is
referring to the way each language is composed of
phonological and supra segmental elements that combine to
give the language its unique sound . The learner must gain a
“feel” for this aspect of the target language as soon as
possible. By looking at the material chosen and the sequence
in which it is presented in a Silent Way classroom,

2. it is clear that the Silent Way takes a structural approach to

the organization of language to be taught. The sentence is the
basic unit of teaching, and the teacher focuses on
propositional meaning, rather than communicative value.
Students are presented with the structural patterns of the
target language and learn the grammar rules of the language
through largely inductive processes.

3. Gattegno sees vocabulary as a central dimension of

language learning and the choice of vocabulary as crucial. The
most important vocabulary for the learner deals with the
most functional and versatile words of the language, many of
which may not have direct equivalents in the learner’s native
language. This “functional vocabulary” provides a key to
comprehending the “spirit” of the language.

Theory of learning

The Silent Way shares a great deal with other learning

theories and educational philosophies. Very broadly put, the
learning hypotheses underlying Gattegno’s work could be
stated as follows:

1. Learning is facilitated if the learner discovers or creates

rather than remembers and repeats what is to be learned.

2. Learning is facilitated by accompanying (mediating) physical

objects.

3. Learning is facilitated by problem solving involving the

material to be learned .

Let us consider each of these issues in turn.

1.The Silent Way belongs to a tradition that views learning as

a problem solving, creative, discovering activity, in which the
learner is a principal actor rather than a bench-bound
listener . Bruner discusses the benefits derived from
“discovery learning” under four headings: (a) the increase in
intellectual potency, (b) the shift from extrinsic to intrinsic
rewards, (c) the learning of heuristics by discovering, and (d)
the aid to conserving memory.

2. The rods and the color-coded pronunciation charts (called

Fidel charts) provide physical foci for student learning and
also create memorable images to facilitate student recall. In
psychological terms, these visual devices serve as associative
mediators for student learning and recall.
3. The Silent Way is also related to a set of premises that we
have called “problem-solving approaches to learning.” These
premises are succinctly represented in the words of Benjamin
Franklin

-Tell me and I forget,

- teach me and I remember,

-involve me and I learn.

Awareness is educable. As one learns “in awareness,” one’s

powers of awareness and one’s capacity to learn become
greater. The Silent Way thus claims to facilitate what
psychologists call “learning to learn.” Again, the process chain
that develops awareness proceeds from attention,
production, self-correction, and absorption. Silent Way
learners acquire “inner criteria,” which play a central role “in
one’s education throughout all of one’s life” . These inner
criteria allow learners to monitor and self-correct their own
production. It is in the activity of self-correction through self-
awareness that the Silent Way claims to differ most notably
from other ways of language learning. It is this capacity for
self-awareness that the Silent Way calls upon, a capacity said
to be little appreciated or exercised by first language learners.

Objectives

1.The general objective of the Silent Way is to give beginning-

level students oral and aural facility in basic elements of the
target language.

2.The general goal set for language learning is nearnative

fluency in the target language, and correct pronunciation and
mastery of the prosodic elements of the target language are
emphasized.

3.An immediate objective is to provide the learner with a

basic practical knowledge of the grammar. Gattegno discusses
the following kinds of objectives as appropriate for a
language course at an elementary level,students could be able
to:

a)correctly and easily answer questions about themselves,

their education, their family, travel, and daily events;

b)speak with a good accent;

c)give either a written or an oral description of a picture,

“including the existing relationships that concern space, time
and numbers”;

d)answer general questions about the culture and the

literature of the native

e)speakers of the target language;

f)perform adequately in the following areas: spelling,

grammar (production rather than explanation), reading
comprehension, and writing.

The syllabus:

1.The Silent Way adopts a basically structural syllabus, with

lessons planned around grammatical items and related
vocabulary. Gattegno does not, however, provide details as to
the precise selection and arrangement of grammatical and
lexical items to be covered. But language items are introduced
according to their grammatical complexity, their relationship
to what has been taught previously, and the ease with which
items can be presented visually.

2.Vocabulary is selected according to the degree to which it

can be manipulated within a given structure and according to
its productivity within the classroom setting.

Types of learning and teaching activities:

1.Learning tasks and activities in the Silent Way have the

function of encouraging and shaping student oral response
without direct oral instruction from or unnecessary modeling
by the teacher. Basic to the method are simple linguistic tasks
in which the teacher models a word, phrase, or sentence and
then elicits learner responses. Learners then go on to create
their own utterances by putting together old and new
information.

2.Charts, rods, and other aids may be used to elicit learner

responses.

3.Teacher modeling is minimal, although much of the activity

may be teacher-directed. Responses to commands, questions,
and visual cues thus constitute the basis for classroom
activities.

LEARNER ROLES:

1.Learners are expected to develop independence, autonomy,

and responsibility. Independent learners are those who are
aware that they must depend on their own resources and
realize that they can use “the knowledge of their own
language to open up some things in a new language” or that
they can “take their knowledge of the first few words in the
new language and figure out additional words by using that
knowledge”.

2.The teacher requires the students to develop “inner criteria”

and to correct themselves. The absence of explanations
requires learners to make generalizations, come to their own
conclusions, and formulate whatever rules they themselves
feel they need.

3.Learners have only themselves as individuals and the group

to rely on, and so must learn to work cooperatively rather
than competitively. They need to feel comfortable both
correcting one another and being corrected by one another.

Teacher roles:

1.Teacher silence traditionally trained is, perhaps, the unique

and, for many language teachers, the most demanding aspect
of the Silent Way.

2.Teachers are exhorted to resist their long-standing

commitment to model, remodel, assist, and direct desired
student responses.

3.Stevick defines the Silent Way teacher’s tasks as (a) to

teach, (b) to test, and (c) to get out of the way. By “teaching”
is meant the presentation of an item once, typically using
nonverbal clues to get across meanings. Testing follows
immediately and might better be termed elicitation and
shaping of student production, which, again, is done in as
silent a way as possible.

4.The teacher is responsible for creating an environment that

encourage student risk taking and facilitates learning.
5.Teacher monitors learners’ interactions with each other and
may even leave the room while learners struggle with their
new linguistic tools.

6.The teacher uses gestures, charts, and manipulatives in

order to elicit and shape student responses and so must be
both facile and creative as a pantomimist and puppeteer.

7.In sum, the Silent Way teacher, like the complete dramatist,
writes the script, chooses the props, sets the mood , models
the action, designates the players, and is critic for the
performance .

The role of instructional materials;

1.Silent Way materials consist mainly of a set of colored rods,

colorcoded pronunciation and vocabulary wall charts, a
pointer, and reading/writing exercises, all of which are used
to illustrate the relationships between sound and meaning in
the target language.

2.The materials are designed for manipulation by the students

as well as by the teacher, independently and cooperatively, in
promoting language learning by direct association. The
pronunciation charts, called “Fidels,” have been devised for a
number of languages and contain symbols in the target
language for all of the vowel and consonant sounds of the
language. The symbols are colorcoded according to
pronunciation; thus, if a language possesses two different
symbols for the same sound, they will be colored alike.

3. Just as the Fidel charts are used to visually illustrate

pronunciation, the colored Cuisenaire rods are used to
directly link words and structures with their meanings in the
target language, thereby avoiding translation into the native
language

4.When the teacher or student has difficulty expressing a

desired word or concept, the rods can be supplemented by
referring to the Fidel charts, or to the third major visual aid
used in the Silent Way, the vocabulary charts. The vocabulary
or word charts are likewise color-coded, although the colors
of the symbols will not correspond to the phonetics of the
Fidels, but rather to conceptual groupings of words.