The History of the Method: The Silent Way

This is why the Silent Way appeared. Its main aim was to provoke much more critical thinking than before and to embrace relying on one’s own knowledge without being dependent on the teacher’s appreciation. 

The method’s name comes from the teacher’s expected silence, during which they must resist the urge to let students in on everything.

Within the Silent Way, the teacher is a promoter of the learning process rather than an educator.

Meanwhile, the teacher is expected to moderate the lesson, promote critical thinking and self-learning as well as implicitly participate in the explanations.

1. The teacher gives a chance to answer first rather than explaining something. The chance might be given through silent pointing at the objects and encouraging students to name the objects  themselves.
2. Students don’t have a ready-to-repeat model they can use. They have to build their own associations with the teacher’s gestures and try naming the objects on their own with no extra help.
3. Students have to show the teacher that they understand the material, simple recreation or repetition without any extra thinking is not enough.
4. Students try to rely more on their knowledge and peers than on the teacher’s help.
5. Reading is taught from the start, however, some prior knowledge is actively used in order to avoid extensive explanations. 

1. Silence is an important tool. Teachers may stay silent to provoke students’ independent thinking and encourage them to be more active and engaged.
2. Vocabulary is rarely translated, the meaning is explained through perception and associations.
3. The teacher is not supposed to interfere with the students’ work as soon as they hear a mistake. Staying silent allows other students to correct each other and in this way cooperate more.
4. Errors are a norm. However, students have to try to correct them on their own first.
5. Students have to be very observant because the teacher often uses gestures only.
6. Language is used a lot for self-expression.
7. Meaningful practice is much more important than repetition.
8. No homework can be assigned as the Silent Way followers believe the language can be processed even during sleep.

Lots of people have negative things to say about The Silent Way. More precisely, because of the teacher’s distance and the generally unfavorable classroom conditions, it was viewed as rather severe.

In the case of the Silent Way, it’s students’ independence, application of critical thinking, use of  rods etc. 

• Teacher’s silence which is used to provoke students’ active work and give them space for their own critical thinking.
• Rods which can be used for both explanation and practice of certain vocabulary and grammar. For more detail, you can read our article on using rods!
• Peer correction. The teacher  is not supposed to correct every single mistake. They should promote peer correction, self-observation and independence.
• Gestures, which is a popular way of making students guess certain words or build some association without interfering, interrupting, or talking too much.