The Silent Way makes it easy for students of foreign languages to master grammar at a very early stage in their study. This can be accomplished while playing games with ad-hoc materials as well as Cuisenaire rods. After achieving good control over the grammar, pronunciation and melody of a language, students can absorb large amounts of “content vocabulary” (shoe, tree, run, tired, etc.) and immediately put these words to use in sentences.
The Silent Way Wall Pictures and Worksheets
Ten large wall pictures depict everyday scenes such as a bedroom or a supermarket. Using a pointer, the teacher indicates things in the picture and says and writes their names (if the students don’t know them) on a whiteboard.
At the same time, the students write these words on their own smaller version of the picture, close to the object in question. The teacher can then have a student come forward and “touch the armchair, touch the slippers,” and so on. Different students can then continue this activity while the teacher keeps silence. More complicated questions can then be asked:
- Where are the slippers?
- How many lamps are on the nightstand?
- Is the pillow bigger than the armchair?
Each student’s small version of the picture is a record of new words learned and provides a way for students to review without need for translation.
Telling Stories Using Rods
The teacher can easily use rods to represent a house, a bed, a table, etc. It is then possible to make one rod represent a person and to tell a simple story. For example:
This is Mr. Brown. He is opening the door. He’s going into the house. He’s turning on the light and going into the bedroom. Now he’s sitting in the armchair and taking off his shoes…
The rod story provides an easy and fun way to add more words – especially verbs – to the vocabulary list from the Silent Way picture. Students can then retell the same story or invent a new one.
Word Lists for Recycling Vocabulary
The picture and the rod stories facilitate the introduction of a rather large number of new words. To keep this new vocabulary “alive,” the teacher may make a word list which can be put up on the wall. In later sessions, students can be asked to make sentences using words from several of these lists. For example, students might be challenged to make a sentence containing one word from the bedroom list and another word from the list related to shopping.
Silent-Way Restriction Games
These open-ended challenges, called Restriction Games, spark creativity. Sentences meeting the above challenge might include:
- There are no armchairs in the supermarket.
- Melons are heavier than pillows but pillows are bigger than melons.
- Mr. Brown went to the store wearing his slippers.
Restriction games allow one student to learn from another and everyone to learn from mistakes. These are golden opportunities for the teacher to give students feedback on their production and to use Silent-Way self-correction techniques.
Writing a Story
Once the students know a lot of words related to the theme of the picture, the teacher might ask them to write a story using the new vocabulary they now possess, perhaps as a homework assignment. Even low-level students may amaze you.
Vocabulary introduced through the wall pictures and worksheets is put to use in stories told with the help of rods, practiced and combined through restriction games and eventually written in a composition. Many of these Silent-Way techniques can easily be applied in any classroom and will result in a richer experience for teacher and student alike.
