Silent Way

 Hi everyone! And welcome to another entry😊

On yesterday's class we learned about the Silent Way, I didn't know that this could be a way of learning a language but also, an effective one.

It was first proposed in the 70's by the Egyptian mathematician and educator Caleb Gattegno he firmly believed that the less a teacher teached the more the students would learn, this method is all about discovering rather than teachin and using physical tools.

In a way it is very similar to the Direct Method since only the target language is used in the classroom and it is student centered in a way that the teacher almost disappears from the lesson in order to let the students learn on their own, the teacher should help only if necessary because the more they help the less the students will learn. Perfection does not matter on the Silent Way, what comes first and most important is progress.

The techniques this method works with are the following:

1. Sound-Color Chart: Each color on the chart represents a sound and the students will be able to form different syllables and words.

2. Teacher's Silence: The teacher will tell the students what to do, will give the necessary help and then will let them learn with no interruptions.

3. Word Chart: This chart contains functional vocabulary that will help the students depending on the level they are in, it is used for teaching and correction. If a student is starting to learn the language the chart will contain many many basic words, however, the number of words will go down as the student progresses to an advanced level where they will learn just a few words.

4. Rods: This technique, created by Georges Cuisenaire, allows the students to be creative and imaginative. The students can practice sentence structure with the different colored rods where each color can represent a subject, a verb or a complement and also storytelling by creating a figure with the rods and form a sentence with each rod.

While using the SWOT method, we concluded that the strengths of the Silent Way are that it is very dynamic, students can learn independently and it is visually appealing. One weakness is that you don't get that much feedback from the teacher. Some opportunities are that you can learn many othe things in your own and your brain is being trained and you become more creative. And last but not least, a threat is that this method can be challenging for some students.

On yesterday's class teacher Orlando brought some rods and we were able to practice with them and honestly, it was really fun!

 These are wooden rods, the ones that are originally used in the technique.

These are the plastic rods, the ones we practiced with.

Here we formed a sentence, where each colored rod represented a subject, a verb and a complement. We worked with regular verbs in the past tense. Example: I danced at the party.

 Here we practiced storytelling, we formed a flower with the rods, each one represented a sentence and we would pull every rod out of the figure until there were no more and the story ended

And here I am with my classmates Miriam, María and Nathaly, the picture was taken by my classmate Mauricio😊

That is all I have for you on this entry about the Silent Way, I hope I was able to summarize correctly all the information, thank you for reading and stay tuned for the next one, bye bye!👋