A Learning Centered Approach

“The students will be astonished to find that their teacher stands through much of the lessons, that he keeps them concentrating all the time, that he says less and less and they more and more, that he neither approves nor disapproves but throws them back upon their own tools of judgment, indicating that they must listen better, use their mouths differently, stress here or there, shorten one sound and prolong another. Very soon, the more or less arbitrary conventions he introduces become accepted between himself and his class.” - Caleb Gattegno, Teaching Foreign Languages in Schools The Silent Way

The Silent way is a learning centered approach. With a learning centered perspective, the learners/students, teachers, and the subject matter are seen in a different way. The language being learned is understood to be the vehicle, and the teacher the facilitator for enhancing the students' learning powers.

Learners and their capabilities:

Learners are well equipped to learn a foreign language. They have already mastered their mother tongue, and they have the ability to change and work on what they say; they are able to produce new sound patterns with a new melody. They are seen as people who can be attentive to their own actions, and can adapt them in response to the demands of the new language.

Teachers and the impact of teaching upon learning:

The Silent Way techniques of teaching are designed to allow teachers to intervene without interfering with the learning processes. Teaching is understood to be an activity directed toward bringing the active and attentive minds of learners in close contact with the language being learned. The various aspects of the language (its melody, structure, orthography, meanings, etc.) are presented in ways, which make sense to students.

The actual language being learned:

The Silent Way materials and techniques are designed to bring students in contact with the totality and complexity of the new language. In addition, when used in specific ways, they provide opportunities for working analytically on very pinpointed issues. A synthetic "feel" for the language, combined with an analytic study of it, enables students to integrate well what they learn. They become alert learners and efficient users of the language, both in and out of the classroom.

Some ways of working with The Silent Way approach.

• Silence is observed by the teacher:
  Silence is a pedagogical device that lets students experience from the start that they can learn far better by relying on themselves rather than on an outside authority. For the teacher, silence allows more time and energy to observe their students and to think of different ways of enhancing learning.
  
  
• The new language is presented without ambiguity:
  Silent Way teachers look at language from the learner’s point of view. This allows them to know better what linguistic activities to present, and how to present them, so that participation leads to mastery of the new language.
  
  
• Precise clues are provided so that students can become users of the new language:
  Silent Way teachers do not model the language, nor do they ask students to imitate what they say or how they say it. Rather, teachers provide clues to mobilize students to work intelligently on the precise things required when learning a new language.
  
  
• Opportunities are provided for constructing criteria for correctness:
  Opportunities for developing the criteria for correctness are built into the Silent Way materials and teaching techniques. As the criteria evolve, students, while doing their best, learn how to do better all the time.
  
  
• Mistakes are used to enhance learning:
  Mistakes are an integral part of learning. Silent Way teachers are especially attentive to students' mistakes. This enables them to refer to the proper criteria and provide the right clues, so that students work with greater precision on their mistakes.
  
  
• Cooperation among students is encouraged:
  Teachers know that cooperative learning is more productive and more enjoyable than working as anxious competitors. Silent Way teachers let their students learn from one another in a relaxed atmosphere.
  
  
• Emphasis is on linguistic situations not memorizing situational language:
  With The Silent Way, memorizing language for use in certain situations is not the goal. Students are presented with challenges in the form of linguistic situations. The situations are intuitively understood and students learn how to function in the “new” language through work within these situations. With this kind of contact with the complexity of the language, students learn to feel confident in using the language in most everyday situations.
  
  
• Practice leads to fluency:
  A lot of practice allows students to learn to express themselves fluently. This is done by providing a wide spectrum of situations that prompt students to generate a lot of statements.