SILENT WAY
brajesh...@yahoo.co.in
Caleb Gattengo.It is based on the premise that the teacher should be
silent as much as possible in the classroom
but the learner should be encourageed to produce as much language as
possible.Elements of the Silent Way, particularly the use of colour
charts and the coloureed 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.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 learnt.
2.Learning is facilitaed by accompanying(meditating) physical objects.
3.Learning is facilitated by problem solving involving the material to
be learned.
Let us consider each of these in turn.
1.The silent way belongs to a tradition that views learnig as a problem
solving activity,creative,discovering activity, in which the learner is
a principal actor rather than a
bench-bound listener.Bruner discusses the benefits derived
from"Discivery Learning" under four headings;
a.the incease 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.
Gattengo claims similar benifits from learners taught via Silent Way.
2.The rods and the colour-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 visul devices serve as associative mediators
for student learnign
and recall.
3.The Silent Way is also related to a set of premises that we have
called "problem-solving
approaches to learnig." These premises are sucintly represented in the
words of Benjamin
Franklin:
TELL ME AND I FORGET,
TEACH ME AND I REMEMBER,
INVOLVE ME AND I LEARN.
TEACHING FOREIGN LANGUAGES - THE SILENT WAY
The idea that a foreign language could be learned by memorising lists
of vocabulary and grammar rules and by continual reference to one's
native tongue has been rejected by most teachers of foreign languages
today. Of the many alternative methods in use now, most have common
basic elements: the learning of phrases and sentences instead of single
words, the infrequent use of the native tongue, the emphasis on the
spoken language, etc., but all still rely on memory as the key to
mastery and include a variety of tools to aid memory, including video
and audio tapes, drills and exercises. At the same time many of these
new methods claim to teach the foreign language in imitation or
simulation of the way a baby learns his native tongue.
These approaches overlook some very basic truths. If one considers
speaking one's native tongue it becomes immediately clear that one does
not remember it, one uses it. Situations trigger verbal responses. It
is also evident that memory is one of our weakest faculties and
therefore makes a poor basis for learning.In all languages there are
two kinds of words; those which can be simply substituted one for
another from one language to the next, and those which cannot be dealt
with in this way. The first group includes all names of objects that
belong to the environments of the people using the language in
question. Most nouns are in this category. These words can be matched
in a one-to-one correspondence and we could conceive of them as being
in vocabularies only requiring either to be recalled or looked-up.
The second category of words is the one that generates the problems in
language learning. Since it is not possible to resort to a one-to-one
correspondence, the only way open is to reach the area of meaning that
the words cover, and find in oneself whether this is a new experience
which yields something of the spirit of the language, or whether there
is an equivalent experience in one's own language but expressed
differently. To make sense of an original text written by a native, one
needs much more than a morphological knowledge of the language and the
possession of a set of equivalents.
If we consider the problems met in the acquisition of the second group
of words mentioned above, it seems obvious that recourse to one's
native tongue is not helpful, and the language ought to be blocked. But
the acquisition of the mother tongue brings with it an awareness of
what language is and it is this that must be retained; it is by keeping
in touch with this awareness that a student who has already mastered
his first language (at an average age of four or five years old) is in
an appreciably stronger position when it comes to tackling a second.
Awareness of what language is includes the use of non-verbal components
of language: melody, rhythm, intonation, breathing, inflection, etc. We
could add to this awareness connected to the reading of a language: the
conventions of writing, the combinations of letters to form the signs
of different sounds and the possibility of one sound being represented
by more than one combination.
Thus there is no chance to present to a learner of a foreign language
any situation comparable to that which he has faced as a baby. The
presentation of a foreign language in a classroom is far from natural
and it can only be learned in school by artificial methods constructed
for the purpose. In a classroom a teacher is there to present what is
to be learned in a highly controlled way, which is quite unlike the
situation for babies, who are subjected to a flow of words knitted
together by the sustaining meaning, and coming from the source as a
whole. People in contact with babies do not take special care when
addressing them: they use the language which is available to them to
say all they wish to say as completely as when talking among
themselves.
Our proposal is to apply an artificial and for some purposes a strictly
controlled approach, using materials constructed for this purpose. We
will meet our students as people who already own much of what is needed
to acquire a language and who have shown by the acquisition of their
native tongue that they are endowed with mental powers that are, to say
the least, sizeable.
The materials:
* a set of coloured wooden rods
* Wall charts a set of word charts
a set of fidel charts
a sound/colour fidel
* a pointer
* a set of wall pictures and * accompanying worksheets
* Mini charts a set of miniature word charts and fidel charts
plus fidel key, sound colour fidel key, exercises.
- three texts a book of 1000 sentences
a book of short passages
a book of stories
We make a start with the vocabulary of the second group of words, which
we call the functional vocabulary. By using a number of small coloured
rods, the teacher creates simple linguistic situations which are
totally under her control. The situations can be very simple. They can
be gradually made more complex as progress is made. The rods are used
here to provide the support of perception and action to the
intellectual guess of what the noises mean, thus bringing in the
arsenal of criteria already developed and automatic in one's use of
one's native tongue.
>From simple expressions and directions (take a red rod and put it here;
give it to me; give it to her, etc.) it is only a matter of hours
before a very precise and complex set of instructions can be given or
written by the student:
There are seven rods on the table, a blue one, two red ones, a yellow
one, a black one, a white one and adark green one. All the rods are
vertical except for one red one. This red one is lying on top of the
blue rod which is standing on top of the white rod. The yellow rod is
behind the blue rod and the other red rod is in front of the blue rod.
The blue rod is between the green rod and the black rod. The black rod
is on the right of the blue rod and the green is on the left. The
yellow rod is bigger than the white rod and the red rods, but smaller
than the blue, green and black rods. The blue rod is the biggest and
the white rod is the smallest.
The structure used above can be transformed immediately into any
description involving spatial relations and comparisons by the
substitution of other nouns and adjectives. The rods are portable and
easy to manipulate. They have qualities of colour, size and number.
They can be used to build houses, furniture, clocks, etc., to represent
people, family trees and with the help of imagination, anything else
needed and not available in a classroom. Unlike pictures, they create
situations which are not static, allowing for a sequence of events to
take place and thus be spoken about, respecting the place of time in
language.
Once some vocabulary has been met, reading is introduced through the
wall charts. These present in a clear, logical and simple form what is
in fact a highly complex analysis of the structure of words and their
pronunciation. The vocabulary provided on the word charts is adequate
for a multitude of different situations because the charts give a large
proportion of the most common and useful words in each of the languages
concerned. This enables a wide range of different sentences to be
produced by selecting with a pointer particular words in appropriate
sentences. The colouring principle, once discovered or explained,
practically ensures correct pronunciation without need for memorising
the code. Students do not ever write in colour. The correct use of the
pointer with the charts will indicate phrasing, stress, speed, rhythm
and intonation.
The various language fidels (or phonic code charts) are comprehensive
sound-sign analyses. Divided horizontally into two sections, the upper
part concerned with vowels, the lower with consonants, thesetables list
in columns the different ways of spelling the various sounds in a
particular language. Once the functional vocabulary has been mastered
the fidels provide the opportunity for numerous games which allow the
study of the complete set of signs and sounds of the language.
The wall pictures present drawings of everyday life and are for the
expansion of vocabulary. They stimulate the introduction of nouns and
new verbs which form part of the day-to-day vocabulary of the people
speaking the language. This vocabulary which we call semi-luxury,
includes food, travel, family life, outings, etc.,. There are
accompanying worksheets which require a variety of sensitivities from
the learner.
The three texts provide graded reading material for individual study by
students. The 1000 sentences are grouped roughly by subject. They
contain a wealth of information about the geography, customs and social
organisation of the land whose tongue is being studied. In the book of
short passages, the passages are concerned with human situations or
natural incidents, many revealing a deeper meaning than the purely
linguistic. Written in a variety of tenses and forms, the separate
accounts introduce new vocabulary and idioms. Short Passages will serve
as a reader, for providing focal points for discussion as well as
starting points for composition. The Eight Tales are enchanting stories
written in simple terms, but without restriction on vocabulary.
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