Chapter five: the silent way method
Textbook: Freeman
BACKGROUND:
The drawback of ALM:
Students inability to transfer the habits they had mastered in classroom to communicative use outside.
Introduced in 1963
Noam Chomsky:
Language acquisition couldn’t take place through habit formation because people create and understand utterances they have never heard before.
People have a knowledge of underlying abstract rules which allows them to understand and create novel utterances.
People should use their own thinking process or cognition to discover the rules.
People have a knowledge of underlying abstract rules which allows them to understand and create novel utterances.
Cognitive-code approach( Cele-Murcia,1991):
Responsible for own learning
Engaged in formulating hypothesis to discover the rule of target language.
Inevitable errors: signs that learners were actively testing their hypothesis.
Both deductive and inductive grammar
Gattegno :
Teaching should be subordinated to learning.
To teach means to serve the learning process rather than dominate it.
Looked at language learning in the way babies and young children learn.
Learning is a process in which we initiate by ourselves by mobilizing our inner resources.
Inner resource: our perception, awareness, cognition, imagination, intuition, creativity, etc.
Teacher should be silent as much as possible in the class.
Learner should be encouraged to produce.
Learning theories include:
Mediating (accompanying) physical objects( charts, rods, etc.)
Problem solving involving the material to be learned.
Discovering or creating rather than remembering and repeating what is to be learned.
Bruner(1966)
Learner is a principal actor rather than a bench-bound listener.
Benefits of discovery learning go under four headings:
A)increase intellectual potency.
B)shift from extrinsic to intrinsic rewards.
C) the learning of heuristics by discovering.
D) the aid to conserving memory.
Sound-color chart
To teach the sounds of English.
Sound combination in target language.
Gestures and some times instructions in native language.
Hand movements to locate errors.
Teacher doesn't say the sound.
Pronunciation.
Word charts
Twelve English charts500 words
Ss work with wall pictures and books.
Sound color chart
Fidel chart
Spelling
Students practice a good deal of complex sentences.
Teacher should start with sth ss already know and goes to unknown.
There are 8 Fidel charts.
Fidel chart
Rods: – Make students be more creative and imaginative – To provide visible actions or situations for any language structure -More practice
Rods
Beginning level to teach colors and numbers
Advanced to teach preposition and conditionals
Abstractly to teach family tree, clock, floor plan
To invert the subject and auxiliary verb to form questions.
Rods
Language
is not learned by repeating after a model.
Each language has its own reality since it is expression of particular group of people.
Native language:
To give instructions, during feedback sessions, while teaching new subject e.g. the teacher starts from vowels that are similar to ss NL.
Culture inseparable from Language.
Teacher
Works with Ss, while Ss work on language.
Seats down on the table silently Silence is a tool. It helps to foster autonomy or exercise of initiative. His silence encourages group cooperation. If he praises or criticizes Ss, they will be less self reliant.
Is not center of attention he listens to Ss and speaks when its necessary.
teacher
Gains valuable information from feedbacks.
Mouths the sound but not vocalize it.
Uses nonverbal gestures and tools.
Gives clues not models.
Teachers role
Technician or engineer
monitor
Force the Ss awareness
Provide exercises to ensure Ss facilities.
Teachers goal
Self expression(thoughts, perceptions, and feelings)
Independency of ss from teacher develop ss inner criteria for correctness.
Reliance of ss on themselves
Gain fluency in the language
Students
Need to develop their own inner criteria for correctness.
Take turns tapping out the sounds.
have to learn to rely on each other and themselves.
Receive the practice in using the language.
Learn how to accept responsibility.
Students role
Make use of what they know .
“to learn is our personal responsibility”, said Gattegno.
To produce the structure
Learn how to accept responsibility by becoming aware and controlling how they use learning strategies in classroom.
interaction
Student student
The teacher is silent.
SS verbal interaction they can learn from each other.
Students feeling
Teacher observes ,helps to overcome Ss negative feelings.
Feedback sessions express how Ss feel relaxed, enjoyable learning.
learning
Involves transferring what one knows to new language.
Takes place in time.
Ss learn at different rates.
Students attention is a key to learning.
Ss learn only one structure at a time.
With minimal spoken cues , the ss are guided to produce the structure.
Emphasized language areas and skills:
Reading from beginning
Pronunciation from beginning
Ss acquire melody of language.
Structure of language is focused.
Vocabulary is restricted at first.
No explicit grammar rule
No fixed linear structural syllabus. The syllabus is according to ss needs.
All four skills are worked.
The skills reinforces what ss are learning.
Evaluation:
Although the teacher may never give a formal test , he assesses ss learning all the time.
Errors
Natural
Indispensable
Inevitable
Important and necessary for learning bc it shows which areas are not clear.
Teacher uses them as a basis for deciding where further work is necessary.
Self correction
Peer correction: cooperative manner
Syllabus
Composed of linguistic structure
The structures of the syllabus are not arranged in a linear fashion, but rather are constantly being recycled.
Feed back
Structured; ss use learning strategies in class.
Native language
The teacher accepts the ss comments in a non defensive manner.
Homework
No home work
Some learning takes place while sleeping.
Ss will naturally work on days lesson then.
No translation
No explanation
General objective: give beginning level ss oral and aural facility in basic elements of TL.
Review of techniques
Rods
Teachers silence
Peer correction
Fidel chart
Structured feedback
Self-correction gesture
advantages
Ss feel comfortable
Ss are active in class
Ss are dependent
Creativity
Discovery
Impower ss vocabulary
disadvantages
The learner works alone
Sentence is the basic unit of teaching and the teacher focuses on propositional meaning rather than communication.
Minimum help on the part of teacher
The materials( rods and charts) will fail.