English the Silent Way : A video Program 1977/8
Laurence Howells
Dear All
We thought people might be interested in a project we are working on to present in a novel way the TV Series that Gattegno filmed in 1977.
A brief introduction to the TV series
The idea of Gattegno's series was that people watching it would find themselves participating along with the students on screen. It consists of 140 half-hour lessons. The hand-book to the series says:
“Generally speaking, viewers who participate in the series of lessons can expect to learn to speak and understand English at an advanced intermediate level, including some facility with writing and reading what they can produce orally.”
It's worth watching the documentary about the series (if you only have a few minutes watch the testimony from one of the students starting at about 8mins into the video): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uhR7Y1ioiTU&list=PLRqZwlD0KSWVldwsTLbvIUCXHfPuE76w_&index=2
Our current project
The complete series is already available on the silentway.online YouTube channel (https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLRqZwlD0KSWVldwsTLbvIUCXHfPuE76w_), but it is not easy to find your way around the videos.
So, we are analysing the films to produce a hyperlinked ‘visual index’ of all 70 hours of the series. Attached to this post is a sample of the current state of this work. This PDF enables you to follow how Gattegno took the students through a ’spiral’ of learning English. The underlined text in the diagram hyperlinks to the relevant part of the videos.
Our aim
There is in fact a lot more to this series than at first meets the eye, and we think it should be better known, not only for it’s historical and intrinsic interest, but also for the radical approach that Gattegno took to using technology to enable learning: with all the (so-called) educational apps and whatever around, no one else seems to have thought of his idea of showing learning rather than teaching
So, we are planning to produce a web-resource including all the descriptive and evaluative material that we can assemble (including the very thorough guides that Gattegno and his team published in 1979), alongside the kind of ‘visual index’ attached to this post. We also intend to write up an account of the series and seek to get it published.
Finally
This is ‘work in progress’ so apologies for the presentational and other deficiencies in the PDF. Nevertheless, we thought it would be worth drawing everyone’s attention to the series and this project at this stage. Let us know what you think!
Laurence
Luigi Magnano
Hi Laurence
Thanks for sharing these videos. Years back I heard and read articles regarding the Video Project but had only seen one short video clip. My school district, at that time, had purchased al videos for “Leo Color” that were used in some of the bilingual schools. It was also during this period in the late 70 when I was introduced to Gattegno.
These videos brought back many fond memories, I’m enjoying going through each video, time permitting, to see and better understand comprehend Dr. G. and his approach, without saying one word he is able to get students to participate and each student is helping the other. I have now reached video number 13 and am quite impressed with the amount of English and acceptable pronunciation that has been attained.
It’s unfortunate that these videos are in such terrible condition, they serve little purpose in the present condition, and may be distractively detrimental to new viewers. I do feel that if possibly with better quality these videos should be viewed by new students and teachers of TSW as they are a treasury chest of pedagogical methodology used by Gattegno, especially how the hands and fingers are used as a tool. Viewing these videos, I become ever more enthused on how brilliant this man was.
Imagine what Dr. G. would do today with the advanced technology that would be available to him.
140 hours during a 3-week period is about 9 hours per day, if not mistaken, for 5 days per week for 3 weeks, that’s amazing.
If these videos could be cleaned or if an original set were still available I would suggest that all users, students and teachers of the TSW be exposed to them before beginning to teach TSW
There would be no better tool available than ... “The Video Project”
Thanks again
Luigi
--
Visit this forum at: https://groups.google.com/d/forum/subtle_ed
Or post via email to: subt...@googlegroups.com
If necessary, use DeepL Translator www.deepl.com/translator
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Subtle" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to subtle_ed+...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web, visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/subtle_ed/2efd5c2f-a8e4-46a5-8d62-b654a2de948bn%40googlegroups.com.
Roslyn Young
MM Group S.r.l.
On May 16, 2022, at 3:08 PM, Roslyn Young <rosly...@gmail.com> wrote:
Hi Luigi,
To view this discussion on the web, visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/subtle_ed/9dc3c4a4-aa5e-4e64-bd3d-e78b01e1ebdan%40googlegroups.com.