LECTURE SEVEN (IV)

TEACHING STRATEGIES

AND CLASSROOM TECHNIQUES

By Alec

 (2) Silent Way

Or silent method, is an approach to language teaching developed in the United States, principally by Caleb Gattegno. The silent way makes use of rods which are small, wooden blocks of ten different lengths but identical cross section, each length having its own, distinctive color. In addition, the method makes use of a fully developed set of materials containing a word chart, a plastic chart in which phonemic distinctions appear as contrasting colors, drawings, wordsheets, and several books. With regard to the linguistic units themselves, the basic strategy of the silent way agrees with many other methods developed over the last thirty years, by concentrating first on the acquisition , within a small vocabulary, of control over pronunciation and structure.

In a typical first lesson, the vocabulary begins with a rod and goes on to such expressions as a blue rod ending with the imperative form Take… The teacher pronounces each new input very clearly. From the very first minute, the students do ninety percent or more of the talking while the teacher remains almost completely silent. At all times, speech is accompanied by appropriate actions and actions are accompanied by appropriate speech.

The silent way is based on the belief that new auditory material is held for about twenty seconds in a state in which it is available for inspection—something like a loop of tape, or like a small work table on which bits of new and old material may be assembled, sorted, and rearranged. This is the reason why human beings are able to do a “double take” in response to something they heard a few seconds before. But if further new auditory material is introduced into the short term memory before the first material has faded from it, the latter material will interfere with the person’s ability to process and assimilate the former. Silence, on the other hand, give the mind maximum opportunity to extract information from a short bit of aural input. The silence—enforced by the teacher—that surrounds the new words, both allows and compels maximum attention and superior processing. The use of silent means that the student derives much more benefit per audible model from the teacher.

Stevick gives the following reasons for preferring rods to toys and real objects:

a.     Representational objects tell the beholder what kind of house, dog, etc. to see; they pre-empt the functioning of the imagination, which is one part of the total personality we are trying to activate.

b.    It is hard for representational objects to be what they are not. Rods, by contrast, have unlimited flexibility. The same rods may become, now a map of the Middle East, now a picture of a traffic accident, and so on.

The student must learn to do without the overt approval of the teacher. Instead he must concentrate on developing and then satisfying his own “inner criteria”. An expression such as “Very good” or enthusiastic visible signs of approval (or disapproval) are not permissible. The desirable compromise, as Stevick puts it, should be “to show pleasure as a person rather than approval as a judge”. From the transactional point of view, teachers may thus reduce the Parental component of their behavior. In so doing, they will clear the way for an Adult-Adult relationship. The method is considered suitable for more advanced classes as well as for students at the beginning stages.

(3) Oral Approach

A flexible method. Although all language skills are practiced, the emphasis is on the spoken word. Ideally the learner writes nothing he has not first heard and practiced. Language results naturally from experience, so that the aim of the teacher should be to condition the student to visual and oral stimuli rather than to think about applying the rules of grammar.

Demands on the Teacher

A language teacher must be aware that this approach is very demanding, both intellectually and physically. Vital qualities are:

a.     Energy.

b.    A desire to teach.

c.     Willingness to prepare materials such as visual aids and photocopies.

d.    An analytical knowledge of the material to be presented.

e.    An ability to transfer this knowledge interestingly and imaginatively.

Teaching Structure

a.    Get into the situation quickly.

b.    Ask the vital check questions, i.e. make sure the students understand what you are doing.

c.    Vary your drilling techniques.

d.    Use as many aids as are necessary to make your lesson meaningful.

e.    Towards the end of the lesson, hand the drilling over to the students to allow maximum student talking time (questions must be strictly controlled).

f.    Allow for a further practice/free stage, but with the teacher still in control.

Points to Remember

a.       At all stages elicit and encourage with a minimum amount of teacher talking time.

b.      Develop ways of checking whether the student understands what he is saying, even though what he says may be linguistically correct.

Points to Avoid

a.     Teacher talking too much.

b.    Not having grammar points at one’s fingertips.

c.     Lack of expression, drama and variation in voice.

d.    Lack of variety in techniques of presentation.

e.    In adequate drilling and check questioning.

f.     Lack of consolidation of material.

g.     Abstract questioning, e.g. Do you know what absent-minded is?

h.    Expecting students to form questions without practice.

i.      Overlooking stress and intonation.

j.     Inadequate pronunciation correction, so that students are not aware of their mistakes.

(1)        Community Language Learning

This approach to language learning is suitable for monolingual groups. The basic procedure of it has two main steps: investment and reflection. In the investment phase, the learner commits himself as much as possible, as he engages in conversation with other members of the learning community. In the reflection phase, the learner stands back and looks at what he has done in the investment phase.

An important factor in both phases is student security. At first, the student has numerous negative feelings. These feelings may come from a previously held prejudice against speakers of the target language or earlier bad experiences with language in general. Other negative feelings may arise out of the learning situation itself, or the student’s total ignorance of the language to be learned. As the process of CLL goes on, the student becomes familiar with the new language and these negative feelings are dealt with, and the student may be expected to become more and more secure and independent.

In addition to the learners, there is at least one resource person who knows both the target language and the native language, and who has some experience in a non-directive  style of counseling as opposed to the more traditional role played by the teacher using the audio-lingual method.

Procedure

The students, seated in a closed circle, simply talk to one another in the foreign language, record what they say on tape, play it back, write it down, and identify and discuss the component parts. The resource person stands outside the circle. However, none of these details is essential. They are merely one method of making possible the ability to communicate out of which a community can grow.

Investment Phase

This has five stages, according to the student’s degree of independence.

a.     The student says aloud, in the L₁ , whatever he wants to say one of the other learners (short sentences). The resource person, standing behind the other learners, supplies the translation, which the student repeats. The resource person’s voice must sound clear and supportive. The resource person may correct a serious error and repeat the phrase again but with no trace of disapproval or reproach. The student switch on the tape recorder just long enough to record his utterance, then passes the microphone to another learner to continue the conversation.

b.     The student says the phrase first in the L₂ without help, and then gives the L₁ equivalent.

c.     The learner is now enjoying his newly found ability in the target language, but makes numerous errors. He becomes annoyed or discouraged if corrected too often. A trying time for the resource person.

d.     The learner is secure enough to accept or even welcome correction from the resource person.

e.     The learner’s use of the target language is basically correct. The resource person is able to suggest a more precise and expressive use of the vocabulary and structure to help him to make his speech more idiomatic and bring it closer to the native speaker’s use of the language.

Reflection Phase

There are three stages:

a.      Immediately after the investment stage, the students talk about the experience in its cognitive, emotional, and physical aspects. The resource person listens attentively and reflects back what it said, in the L₁, in a non-critical way. He neither agrees nor disagrees, nor does he answer their objections.

b.     Playback of recording without interruption. This stage takes little time after pauses, L₁ originals, and the resource person’s voicings have been edited out.

c.      Playback sentence by sentence. The sentences may be written on the blackboard and copied down by the learners. Each learner supplies the translation of the utterances he was responsible for. The resource person helps the group with any linguistic problems that arise.