SILENT WAY

Silent Way.

The Silent Way is a language-teaching method created by Caleb Gattegno that makes extensive use of silence as a teaching technique. It is not usually considered a mainstream method in language education. It was first introduced in Gattegno's book Teaching Foreign Languages in Schools: The Silent Way in 1963. Gattegno was skeptical of the mainstream language education of the time, and conceived of the method as a special case of his general theories of education.

 these principles are^.

1. Teachers should concentrate on how students learn, not on how to teach
2. Imitation and drill are not the primary means by which students learn
3. Learning consists of trial and error, deliberate experimentation, suspending judgement, and revising conclusions
4. In learning, learners draw on everything that they already know, especially their native language
5. The teacher does not interfere with the learning process

In the Silent Way students are seen as bringing a vast amount of experience and knowledge with them to the classroom; namely, their first language. The teacher capitalizes on this knowledge when introducing new material, always building from the known to the unknown. The students begin their study of the language by studying its sound system. The sounds are associated to different colors using a sound-color chart that is specific to the language being learned. The teacher first introduces sounds that are already present in the students' native language, and then progresses to sounds that are new to them. These sound-color associations are later used to help the students with spelling, reading, and pronunciation.