A
Fidel chart for English; these charts are used to teach spelling
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 as
possible. In other hand the teacher as an expositor and students are the
listening. This method described learning as a problem solving where the
learners must be active to produce their activities.
Element 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. The Silent Way shares a great deal with other
learning theories and educational philosophies.
§ 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.
§ The road and
the color-coded pronunciation chart (called Fidel chart).
§ The Silent
Way is also related to a set of premises that we have called “problem-solving
approaches to learning”.
·
Approach: Theory of language and learning
The Silent Way uses a structural approach(the students own
activities rather than activity of the teacher) to organization of language to
be taught.
The
1st principle of the silent way is the subordination of teaching to learning. It
means that the teacher doesn’t model the language but helps students develop
“inner criteria” for correctness.
The
teacher uses what the student already
knows. The Silent Way advocates that we start from what the student
knows. The teacher assists learners to use that knowledge in the target language,
and then the teacher can continue putting together sounds to make a name word.
The student learns from one another. The Silent Way views learning as a
problem-solving, creative, discovering activity, in which the learner is a
principal actor but they can teach the peers.
Theory of language The “spirit” of the language “ Semi-luxury
vocabulary”: commom expressions in the daily life “ Luxury vocabulary”: used in
communicating more specialized ideas “ Functional vocabulary”: learners deals
with the most functional and versatile words of the language that almost don’t
have direct equivalents in the learner’s native tongue.
Theory
of learning A successful learning involves commitment of the self to language
acquisition through the use of silent awareness and then active trial. Silence
as avoidance repetition is an aid to alertness, concentration and mental
organization. Silent Way learners acquire “inner criteria”. Gattegno sees
language learning through the Silent Way as a recovery of innocence – “a return
to our powers and potentials.
The Silent Way takes a structural approach to the organization of
language to be though. The sentence is the basic unit of teaching, and the
teacher focused 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.
·
Objectives
The General Objective
: to give beginning level students oral and aural facility in basic elements of
the target language. The general goal set for language learning is near-native
fluency in the target language, correct pronunciation and mastery of the
prosodic elements of the target language are emphasized. Immediate Objective :
provide the learner with a basic practical knowledge of the grammar of the
target language.
The syllabus
Structural syllabus: lesson planned around grammatical items and related
vocabulary. Language items: introduced according to their grammatical
complexity and their relationship to what has been taught previously. The
imperative: is normally the first structure introduced, because of the ease
with action verbs may be demonstrated using Silent Way materials. Numeration
and prepositions of location Vocabulary
Types of
learning and teaching activities Learners go on to create their own utterances
by putting together old and new informations. The teacher models a word,
phrase, or sentence and then elicits learner responses. 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.
Learner role
Learners are expected to develop independence, autonomy and responsibility. Independent
learners 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. Learner role Autonomous learners choose proper expressions in a
given set of circumstances and situations. Responsible learners know that they
have free will to choose among any set of linguistic choices, the ability to
choose intelligently and carefully is said to be evidence of responsibility. Learners
are expected to interact with each
other and suggest alternatives to each other, they must learn to work
cooperatively rather than competitively.
The role of
the students is to make use of what they know, to free themselves of any
obstacles that would interfere with giving their utmost to the learning task,
and to actively engage in exploring the language.
The teacher is a
technician or an engineer who facilitates learning. It means that the
teacher monitors the learner’s efforts. Even though teachers are often silent, but they are still active; they will commonly use
techniques such as mouthing words and using hand gestures to help the students
with their pronunciation. The teacher uses
gestures, charts, and manipulative in order to elicit and shape student
responses and so must be both facile and creative. The teachers’ role is one of
neutral observer, neither elated by correct performance nor discouraged by
error. According Stevick (1980, p.56), Silent Way teacher’s tasks are: (a) to
teach (b) to test (c) to get out of the way. 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
monitors learners’ interactions with each other and may even leave the room
while learners struggle with their new linguistic tool.
·
Teaching materials
The silent way makes use of specialized teaching
materials: colored Cuisenaire
rods, the sound-color chart, word charts, and Fidel charts.
The Cuisenaire rods are wooden, and come in ten different lengths, but
identical cross-section; each length has its own assigned color. The rods are
used in a wide variety of situations in the classroom. At the beginning stages
they can be used to practice colors and numbers, and later they can be used in
more complex grammar. For example, to teach prepositions the teacher
could use the statement "The blue rod is between the green one and the
yellow one". They can also be used more abstractly, perhaps to represent a
clock or the floor plan of a house.
The sound-color chart consists of blocks of color, with one color
representing one sound in the language being learned. The teacher uses this
chart to help teach pronunciation; as well as pointing to colors to help
students with the different sounds, she can also tap particular colors very
hard to help students learn word stress. Later in the
learning process, students can point to the chart themselves. The chart can
help students perceive sounds that may not occur in their first language, and
it also allows students to practice making these sounds without relying on
mechanical repetition. It also provides an easily verifiable record of which
sounds the students and which they have not, which can help their autonomy.
The 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. The teacher can
point to the chart to highlight the pronunciation of different words in
sentences that the students are learning. There are twelve word charts in
English, containing a total of around five hundred words. The Fidel charts also
use the same color-coding, and list the various ways that sounds can be
spelled. For example, in English, the entry for the sound /ey/ contains the
spellings ay, ea, ei, eigh, etc., all written in
the same color. These can be used to help students associate sounds with their
spelling.
•
Prosedure
First part of the lesson focused 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
combination of utterances, and monitor student utterances. The teacher may say
a word and have students 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 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 practice d. The teacher models
an utterance while creating a visual realization of it with the colored rods.
After modeling the The utterance, the teacher will attempt to reshape the utterance
or have another student present the correct model. After a structure is
introduced and understood, the teacher will create a situation in which the
students can practice the structure through the manipulation of the rods.
Variation on the structural theme will be elicited from the class using the
rods and charts.
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