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Approaches and Methods in Language Teaching
Jack C. Richards, Theodore S. Rodgers
Book DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511667305
Online ISBN: 9780511667305
Hardback ISBN: 9780521803656
Paperback ISBN: 9780521008433
Chapter
6 - The Silent Way pp. 81-89
Chapter DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511667305.009
Cambridge University Press
81
6 The Silent Way
Background
The Silent Way is the name of a method of language teaching devised by
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. Elements of the
Silent Way, particularly the use of color charts and the colored Cuisenaire
rods, grew out of Gattegnos previous experience as an educational
designer of reading and mathematics programs. The Silent Way shares a
great deal with other learning theories and educational philosophies.
Very broadly put, the learning hypotheses underlying Gattegnos 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 princi-
pal actor rather than a bench-bound listener (Bruner 1966). 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 discover-
ing, and (d) the aid to conserving memory (Bruner 1966: 83). Gat-
tegno claims similar benefits from learners taught via the Silent Way.
2. The rods and the color-coded pronunciation charts (called Fidel
charts) provide physical foci for student learning and also create mem-
orable 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 suc-
cinctly represented in the words of Benjamin Franklin:
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Alternative approaches and methods
82
Tell me and I forget,
teach me and I remember,
involve me and I learn.
Approach: Theory of language and learning
Gattegno takes an openly skeptical view of the role of linguistic theory in
language teaching methodology. He feels that linguistic studies may be a
specialization, [that] carry with them a narrow opening of ones sen-
sitivity and perhaps serve very little towards the broad end in mind
(Gattegno 1972: 84). Considerable discussion is devoted to the impor-
tance 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 suprasegmental elements
that combine to give the language its unique sound system and melody.
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, 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 proposi-
tional 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.
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 learners
native language. This functional vocabulary provides a key, says Gat-
tegno, to comprehending the spirit of the language.
In elaborating a learning theory to support the principles of Silent Way,
like many other method proponents Gattegno makes extensive use of his
understanding of first language learning. He recommends, for example,
that the learner needs to return to the state of mind that characterizes a
babys learning surrender (Scott and Page 1982: 273).
Having referred to these processes, however, Gattegno states that the
processes of learning a second language are radically different from
those involved in learning a first language. The second language learner is
unlike the first language learner and cannot learn another language in
the same way because of what he now knows (Gattegno 1972: 11). The
natural or direct approaches to acquiring a second language are thus
misguided, says Gattegno, and a successful second language approach
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The Silent Way
83
will replace a natural approach by one that is very artificial and, for
some purposes, strictly controlled (1972: 12).
The artificial approach that Gattegno proposes is based on the prin-
ciple that successful learning involves commitment of the self to language
acquisition through the use of silent awareness and then active trial.
Gattegnos repeated emphasis on the primacy of learning over teaching
places a focus on the self of the learner, on the learners priorities and
commitments. The self, we are told, consists of two systems a learning
system and a retaining system. The learning system is activated only by
way of intelligent awareness. The learner must constantly test his
powers to abstract, analyze, synthesize and integrate (Scott and Page
1982: 273). Silence is considered the best vehicle for learning, because in
silence students concentrate on the task to be accomplished and the
potential means to its accomplishment. Repetition (as opposed to silence)
consumes time and encourages the scattered mind to remain scattered
(Gattegno 1976: 80). Silence, as avoidance of repetition, is thus an aid to
alertness, concentration, and mental organization.
Awareness is educable. As one learns in awareness, ones powers of
awareness and ones 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 atten-
tion, production, self-correction, and absorption. Silent Way learners
acquire inner criteria, which play a central role in ones education
throughout all of ones life (Gattegno 1976: 29). 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.
Design: Objectives, syllabus, learning activities, roles of
learners, teachers, and materials
The general objective of the Silent Way is to give beginning-level students
oral and aural facility in basic elements of the target language. The gen-
eral goal set for language learning is near-native fluency in the target
language, and correct pronunciation and mastery of the prosodic ele-
ments of the target language are emphasized. 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 (Gattegno 1972: 8183). Stu-
dents should be able to
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Alternative approaches and methods
84
correctly and easily answer questions about themselves, their education, their
family, travel, and daily events;
speak with a good accent;
give either a written or an oral description of a picture, including the existing
relationships that concern space, time and numbers;
answer general questions about the culture and the literature of the native
speakers of the target language;
perform adequately in the following areas: spelling, grammar (production
rather than explanation), reading comprehension, and writing.
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 arrange-
ment of grammatical and lexical items to be covered. But language items
are introduced according to their grammatical complexity, their relation-
ship to what has been taught previously, and the ease with which items
can be presented visually.
The following is a section of a Peace Corps Silent Way Syllabus for the
first 10 hours of instruction in Thai. It was used to teach American Peace
Corps volunteers being trained to teach in Thailand. At least 15 minutes
of every hour of instruction would be spent on pronunciation. A word
that is italicized can be substituted for by another word having the same
function.
Lesson Vocabulary
1. Wood color red. wood, red, green, yellow, brown,
pink, white, orange, black,
color
2. Using the numbers 110. one, two, . . . ten
3. Wood color red two pieces.
4. Take (pick up) wood color
red two pieces.
take (pick up)
5. Take wood color red two
pieces give him.
give, object pronouns
6. Wood red where?
Wood red on table.
where, on, under, near, far, over,
next to, here, there
7. Wood color red on table, is
it?
Yes, on.
Not on.
Question-forming rules.
Yes, No.
8. Wood color red long.
Wood color green longer.
Wood color orange longest.
adjectives of comparison
9. Wood color green taller.
Wood color red, is it?
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The Silent Way
85
10. Review. Students use struc-
tures taught in new situa-
tions, such as comparing the
heights of students in the
class.
(Joel Wiskin, personal communication)
Learning tasks and activities in the Silent Way have the function of
encouraging and shaping student oral response without direct oral in-
struction 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 informa-
tion. Charts, rods, and other aids may be used to elicit learner responses.
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.
Learners are expected to develop independence, autonomy, and re-
sponsibility. Independent learners are those who are aware that they must
depend on their own resources and realize that they can use the knowl-
edge 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 (Ste-
vick 1980: 42). The absence of correction and repeated modeling from
the teacher requires the students to develop inner criteria and to cor-
rect themselves. The absence of explanations requires learners to make
generalizations, come to their own conclusions, and formulate whatever
rules they themselves feel they need.
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 silence is, perhaps, the unique and, for many traditionally
trained language teachers, the most demanding aspect of the Silent Way.
Teachers are exhorted to resist their long-standing commitment to model,
remodel, assist, and direct desired student responses. Stevick defines the
Silent Way teachers tasks as (a) to teach, (b) to test, and (c) to get out of
the way (Stevick 1980: 56). Although this may not seem to constitute a
radical alternative to standard teaching practice, the details of the steps
the teacher is expected to follow are unique to the Silent Way. By teach-
ing 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. Finally, the teacher silently
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Alternative approaches and methods
86
monitors learners interactions with each other and may even leave the
room while learners struggle with their new linguistic tools.
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. 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.
Silent Way materials consist mainly of a set of colored rods, color-
coded 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. 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 color-
coded according to pronunciation; thus, if a language possesses two
different symbols for the same sound, they will be colored alike.
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. The rods vary in length from 1 to 10 centime-
ters, and each length has a specific color. The rods may be used for
naming colors, for size comparisons, to represent people, build floor
plans, constitute a road map, and so on. Use of the rods is intended to
promote inventiveness, creativity, and interest in forming communicative
utterances on the part of the students, as they move from simple to more
complex structures.
Procedure
A Silent Way lesson typically follows a standard format. The first part of
the lesson focuses on pronunciation. Depending on student level, the
class might work on sounds, phrases, even sentences designated on the
Fidel chart. At the beginning stage, the teacher will model the appropriate
sound after pointing to a symbol on the chart. Later, the teacher will
silently point to individual symbols and combinations of utterances, and
monitor student utterances. The teacher may say a word and have stu-
dents guess what sequence of symbols compromised the word.
The pointer is used to indicate stress, phrasing, and intonation. Stress
can be shown by touching certain symbols more forcibly than others
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The Silent Way
87
when pointing out a word. Intonation and phrasing can be demonstrated
by tapping on the chart to the rhythm of the utterance.
After practice with the sounds of the language, sentence patterns,
structure, and vocabulary are practiced. The teacher models an utterance
while creating a visual realization of it with the colored rods. After mod-
eling the utterance, the teacher will have a student attempt to produce the
utterance and will indicate its acceptability. If a response is incorrect, the
teacher will attempt to reshape the utterance or have another student
present the correct model. After a structure is introduced and under-
stood, the teacher will create a situation in which the students can prac-
tice the structure through the manipulation of the rods. Variations on the
structural theme will be elicited from the class using the rods and charts.
The sample lesson that follows illustrates a typical lesson format. The
language being taught is Thai, for which this is the first lesson.
1. Teacher empties rods onto the table.
2. Teacher picks up two or three rods of different colors, and after each
rod is picked up says: [mai].
3. Teacher holds up one rod of any color and indicates to a student that
a response is required. Student says: [mai]. If response is incorrect,
teacher elicits response from another student, who then models for
the first student.
4. Teacher next picks up a red rod and says: [mai sii daeng].
5. Teacher picks up a green rod and says: [mai sii khiaw].
6. Teacher picks up either a red or green rod and elicits response from
student. If response is incorrect, procedure in step 3 is followed
(student modeling).
7. Teacher introduces two or three other colors in the same manner.
8. Teacher shows any of the rods whose forms were taught previously
and elicits student response. Correction technique is through student
modeling, or the teacher may help student isolate error and self-
correct.
9. When mastery is achieved, teacher puts one red rod in plain view and
says: [mai sii daeng nung an].
10. Teacher then puts two red rods in plain view and says: [mai sii daeng
song an].
11. Teacher places two green rods in view and says: [mai sii khiaw song
an].
12. Teacher holds up two rods of a different color and elicits student
response.
13. Teacher introduces additional numbers, based on what the class can
comfortably retain. Other colors might also be introduced.
14. Rods are put in a pile. Teacher indicates, through his or her own
actions, that rods should be picked up, and the correct utterance
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Alternative approaches and methods
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made. All the students in the group pick up rods and make utter-
ances. Peer-group correction is encouraged.
15. Teacher then says: [kep mai sii daeng song an].
16. Teacher indicates that a student should give the teacher the rods
called for. Teacher asks other students in the class to give him or her
the rods that he or she asks for. This is all done in the target language
through unambiguous actions on the part of the teacher.
17. Teacher now indicates that the students should give each other com-
mands regarding the calling for of rods. Rods are put at the disposal
of the class.
18. Experimentation is encouraged. Teacher speaks only to correct an
incorrect utterance, if no peer-group correction is forthcoming.
(Joel Wiskin, personal communication)
Conclusion
Despite the philosophical and sometimes almost metaphysical quality of
much of Gattegnos writings, the actual practices of the Silent Way are
much less revolutionary than might be expected. Working from what is a
rather traditional structural and lexical syllabus, the 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 exercises to freer communication.
The innovations in Gattegnos method derive primarily from the manner
in which classroom activities are organized, the indirect role the teacher is
required to assume in directing and monitoring learner performance, the
responsibility placed on learners to figure out and test their hypotheses
about how the language works, and the materials used to elicit and
practice language.
Bibliography and further reading
Arnold, F. 1981. College English: A Silent-Way Approach. Nara, Japan: Dawn
Press.
Blair, R. W. (ed.). 1982. Innovative Approaches to Language Teaching. Rowley,
Mass.: Newbury House.
Borasi, R., and B. Agor. 1990. What can mathematics educators learn from
second language instruction? Focus on Learning Problems in Mathematics.
17(3/4): 127.
Bower, G. H., and D. Winzenz. 1970. Comparison of associative learning strat-
egies. Psychonomic Sciences 20: 119120.
Bruner, J. 1966. On Knowing: Essays for the Left Hand. New York: Atheneum.
Cheery, D. 1994. Learning with rods: One account. Masters thesis, School for
International Training, Brattleboro, Vermont.
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The Silent Way
89
Craik, F. I. M. 1973. A levels of analysis view of memory. In P. Pliner, L. Krames,
and T. Alloway (eds.), Communication and Affect: Language and Thought.
New York: Academic Press.
Diller, K. C. 1978. The Language Teaching Controversy. Rowley, Mass.: New-
bury House.
Gattegno, C. 1972. Teaching Foreign Languages in Schools: The Silent Way. 2nd
ed. New York: Educational Solutions.
Gattegno, C. 1976. The Common Sense of Teaching Foreign Languages. New
York: Educational Solutions.
Harbon, L. 1997. Constructivism in the language classroom. Babel 32(3): 12
15.
Lantolf, J. 1986. Silent Way in a university setting: An applied research report.
Canadian Modern Language Review 43(1): 3458.
Rossner, R. 1982. Talking shop: A conversation with Caleb Gattegno, inventor of
the Silent Way. ELT Journal 36(4): 23741.
Scott, R., and M. Page. 1982. The subordination of teaching to learning: A
seminar conducted by Dr. Caleb Gattegno. ELT Journal 36(4): 273274.
Selman, M. 1977. The Silent Way: Insights for ESL. TESL Talk 8: 336.
Stevick, E. W. 1976. Memory, Meaning and Method: Some Psychological Per-
spectives on Language Learning. Rowley, Mass.: Newbury House.
Stevick, E. W. 1980. Teaching Languages: A Way and Ways. Rowley, Mass.:
Newbury House.
Stevick, E. W. 1990. Humanism in Language Teaching. Oxford: Oxford Univer-
sity Press.
Stevick, E. W. 1998. Working with Teaching Methods: Whats at Stake? Boston,
Mass.: Heinle & Heinle.
Thompson, G. J. 1980. The Silent Way: Interpretation and application. Masters
thesis, University of Hawaii.
Varvel, T. 1979. The Silent Way: Panacea or pipedream? TESOL Quarterly
13(4): 483494.
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