Camilo Andres Piñeros Ovalle

Professor Morales
Didactics, design and melex
May 2, 2013

Should A Teacher Remain Silent As Much As Possible?

According to different used techniques in the silent way method, the teacher has to stay quiet

as much as possible in the learning process, this is used to give to the student more opportunities

to develop language skills and emphasizing in the speaking abilities, giving to the pronunciation

an important function in this method. The role of teacher has a notable change in the silent way;

in this case, he is only a guide, a process monitor, where the main rule is stay in silence as much

as possible, creating a new environment to the student in which the autonomy of him is a basis to

start an enriching learning experience.

It is well known that teachers have the function to give previous rules and instructions to start

a new topic in a class, especially when the class is made in the target language, but Gattegno

(1963) replaced some of the common rules used to teach and applied new principles in the silent

way, for example: the teacher must not interfere with the learning process, it consists of trial and

error, deliberating experimentation, suspending judgment, and revising conclusions. These new

statements established in the silent way allowed the teacher to leave in the background how to

teach and concentrate in how students learn, besides this, also is used a type of “silence rule”,

creating the perfect atmosphere to evaluate the progress.

 Silence, used as a main tool in the silent way, has some benefits in different aspects: being

silent, moves the focus of the classroom from the teacher to the students and can encourage

cooperation among them; it also frees the teacher to observe the class, helping students to correct

their own errors (Larsen-Freeman 2000). The use of silence depends on the planning of the

teacher, being gestures the common manner of communication to set instructions, it gives to the

students a perfect manner to pay attention and develop the activity correctly. This type of

communication is really interesting and helpful to the teacher, because avoiding the noise; the

student has all the concentration in the gestures of the teacher developing his deductive and

response skills.

When gestures are not enough, also exist other materials that help to the students to learn, as

Stevick (1974) described them: “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”, this type of materials made with different colors are perfect for

beginners, having an easily assimilation, the student can improve the vocabulary and develop

spelling faster. When all the charts are mastered, the student has the advantage to identify the

desired item asked by the teacher, taking his own decisions and making more confortable the

acquisition of a specific vocabulary, the learner can improve at the same time his inner criteria.

Therefore, I can finally say that using the silent way method it is possible and beneficial for a

teacher to remain silent as possible, due to the wide varieties of materials and gestures, it is not
necessary to interrupt the learning process optimizing the mental development of the learner and

improving the autonomy of his decisions, pushing the students to make their own discoveries.

References

Gattegno, Caleb (1963). Teaching Foreign Languages in Schools: The Silent Way (1st ed.).

Reading, UK: Educational Explorers.

Larsen-Freeman, Diane (2000). Techniques and Principles in Language Teaching. Teaching

Techniques in English as a Second Language (2nd ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Stevick, Earl (1974). "Review of Teaching Foreign Languages in the Schools: The Silent

Way". TESOL Quarterly 8 (3): 305–313.