The Silent Way

<The Silent Way is an approach to learning and teaching foreign languages that is part of a larger pedagogical approach created by Caleb Gattegno. Color-coded words, and boxes of colorful Cuisenaire rods easily identify the materials of this approach. The teaching approach itself is identified by the near-silence of the teacher.


Materials
The materials usually associated with The Silent Way are a set of tools that allow teachers to apply Gattegno's theory of learning and The Subordination of Teaching to Learning in the field of foreign language teaching. The tools invented by Caleb Gattegno are not the only possible set of tools for teachers working in this field. Others can and indeed have been invented by teachers doing research in this area.

Sound-color chart
The sound-color chart is a wall chart that shows different colored rectangles on a black background. Each color represents a phoneme of the language being studied. The teacher uses a pointer to touch a series of rectangles, and without saying anything themself, can get the students to produce any utterance in the language if they know the correspondence between the colors and the sounds.

The Fidel
Keeping in mind the rule that one color represents one sound, the Fidel expands on the sound-color chart by listing all the possible spellings of that sound in color.

Cuisenaire rods
Colorful rods of varying lengths are used to prompt an utterance, or a conversation. Students can discuss colors, numbers, location, possession etc. by using the rods as they are. Teachers create other situations by building with the rods, creating images, or using rods to represent people. The most important aspect of using the rods is that when a situation is created in front of the students, they know the meaning of the sentence before the words are actually produced.

Word charts
Functional words of the language are color-coded in the same way as the Fidel and the Sound-Color chart. Since the students are familiar with the colors, the words can be read phonetically even in non-phonetic languages like English.

Wall pictures
Gattegno designed a series of 10 wall pictures to increase the level of conversation and vocabulary of low-level groups.

Books
Student books are printed in black-and-white, and increase in difficulty. There are books for reading material, as well as workbooks.

A pointer
The teacher taps and points with a pointer to link colors and graphemes, and indicate various things on the charts without speaking. Students also use the pointer to tap what they hear spoken, among other activities.