silent way

SILENT WAY AND TOTAL PHYSICAL RESPONS

ARTICLE

TEACHING ENGLISH FOREIGN LANGUAGE 

By : Group 3
Belia Dara Ariani

Pepy Nurdayati

Lecturer :

Rodi Hartono S.Pd M.Pd

STATE ISLAMIC COLLAGE OF KERINCI

2013

SILENT WAY

A.    Background

The Silent Way is a language-teaching method created by Caleb Gattegno that makes extensive use of silence as a teaching technique. It is not usually considered a mainstream method in language education. It was first introduced in Gattegno's book Teaching Foreign Languages in Schools: The Silent Way in 1963. Gattegno was skeptical of the mainstream language education of the time, and conceived of the method as a special case of his general theories of education.

The silent way represent Gattegno’s venture into the field of foreign language teaching. It use color charts and colored cuisenaire rods which were developed first by George Cuisenaire.

B.     Hypotheses

The learning hypothesis underlying Gattegno’s work are:

1.      Learning is facilitated if the learners discover or create

2.      Learning is facilitated by accompanying physical object

3.      Learning is facilitated by problem solving

There are two traditiions of teaching

1.      Expository mode.

In expository modee, the teacher is an expositor and the learner are listeners.

2.      Hypothetical mode.

In this mode, the teacher and the students are in a more cooperative position.

Silent way belongs to the hypotetical mode which views learning as a problem-solving, creative, discovering activity.

There are four benefits of discovery learning:

a.       The increase in intellectual potency

b.      The shift from extrinsic to intrinsic reward

c.       The learning of heuristic by discovering

d.      The aid to discovering memory

The rods and the colors charts of pronounciation provide physical foci for student learning and create memorable image to fasilitate his/her recall. Silent way is also related to a set of premises called “ problem solving approaches to learning”. It is expected to become independent, autonomous and responsible. In other words, a good problem solver in the language.

C.    Principles

1.      The first language acquistion is different from the second language acquistion

2.      The childs mind equips it self more and more edequately.by its own working, trial and error and deliberate experimentation by suspending judgement and revising conclusions.

3.      The students must be given the opportunity to listen to the target language melody.

4.      Language acquisition must bedone by the student himself

5.      The teacher sould be silent more, except when he exposits the new materials.

6.      Methods used is artificial and highly controlled.

7.       Materials are presented with verbal media, but intruction and correction are not done orally.

8.      Vocabulary items are limited

9.      The teacher correct the student mistakes if the other student cannot correct them.

The media used are rods, afield chart and a wall chart. Each of them ha several advantages.

The benefits of rods are:

a.       The L1 use can be avoided

b.      The simple linguistic form can be created

c.       The students intellectual potency can be increased

d.      The teachers pay much attention to the students utterance

The fiddle charts consist of vowels and consonants and the wallchart consist of functional words.

D.    Appoach

1.      Theory of language

Silent way takes a structural approach to the organization of laqnguage to be taught. Language is seen as groups of sounds arbitraty associated with specific meanings and organized into sentence or strings meaningful units by grammar rules. Vocabulary as a central dimension of language learning has several classes.

a.       Semi luxury vocabulary consist of common expression in daily life

b.      Luxury vocabulary communicates more specialized ideas

c.       Functional vocabulary provides a key to comprehending the “spirit” of the language.

2.      Theory of learning

Succesful learning involves commitments of the self to language acquistion through the use of silent awareness and actives trials. Gattegno’s emphasis on the primacy of over teaching places on the self of the learner, on the learners priorities and commitments. The self consist of two system.

a.       The learning system which is actived by way of intelligent awareness.

b.      The retaining system which allows the students to remember and recall the linguistics elements and their organizing principles hwich makes the linguistics communication possible

Silence is a key to triggering awareness and the preferred path to retention.

Silent way learners acquire “inner criteria” which play a central role in one's education. These  inner criteria allow learners nto monitor and selfcorrect their own production. Silent way learning claims to concolidate the human dimensions of being and to include variety and individuality as essential factors for an acceptance of others as contributors to one’s own life.

E.     Usual Calssroom Technique

On the first day the teacher takes a box of colored rods to the class. He picks a red rod which is short while saying “rod”. Then  he picks a longer blue rod and says “rod”. After being silent for a moment the students understand that “rod” is a piece of wood.

            After some examples, the teacher signs the students to immitate, then the students are asked to say the word individually. “adjective” can also be taught in the some way. During the first lesson, there are only three words taught : take , give, and put.

F.     Designs

1.      Objective

The general objective of silent way is gto give begnnimg levelstudents oral and aural facilities in the basic elements of the target language. The general goal is near-native fluency in the target language.

Correct pronounciatian and mastery of prosodic elements of the target language are emphasized. An intermediate objectie isto provide learners with a basic knowledge of grammar rules.

2.      Syllabus

Silent way adopts a bassically structural syllabus with lesson planned around grammatical  items and related vocabularies . there is no general Silent Way syllabus , but language items are introduced according to their grammatical complexity. Vocabulary is selected according to the degree to which it can be manipulated within a given structure and its productivity.

3.      Types of Learning and Teachinf Activities

Learning tasks activities has the function of encouraging the students and shaping their oral responses without a direct oral intruction from the teacher. The teacher models a word, phrase , or sentence and then elicits the learners responses. Then the learners create their own utterance. The teachers modelling is minimal and much activity may be teacher directed.

4.      Learner Role

Learner are expected to develop independence, autonomy and responsibilty. Independentb learners are those who are aware that they must depends on their own resource and realize that they can use the knowledge of their own language to open up something in a new language. The autonomous learners chooses proper expressions  in a given set of circumstances. Responsible learners know that they have free will to choose among any sets of linguistics choices,. It is said to be the evidence of responsibility.

 Learners have to play various roles.  At times one as an in dependent individual, at other times a group member. Also,a learner must be a teacher, a student, a part of a support system, a problem solver and a self-evaluator.

5.      Teacher Roles

The silent way teacher tasks are:

a.       To teach.

Teaching means the presentation of typically using nonverbal clues to get across the meaning.

b.      To test.

Testing means the elicitation and shaping of the students production silently.

c.       To get out of the way.

The teacher silently monitor learners interaction with each other and may leave the room while learners struggle with their new linguistics tools.

            The teacher are responsible for designing teaching  squences, creating individual lessons and lessons elements, and creating an environment that encourages the student risk-taking and that facilitates learning.

6.      Roles of instructional Materials

The materials consist mainly of a set ofg colored rods., color coded pronounciation and vocabulary charts designed for manipulation in promoting the language learning by direct association.

G.    Result

Gattegno claimed that in a year the students could master the language which was able to be taught four years by using o0ther methods.

TOTAL PHYSICAL RESPONSE

A. Back ground

Total Physical Response (TPR) is a language teaching method built around the coordiation of speech and action. It was develoved by James Asher, a professor of psychology at San Jose State University, California, USA. The reference used to know this method is Asher’s book, Learning Another Language Through Action : the Complete Teachers Guide, which was printed in 1982.

            Asher shares a concern for the role of affective factors in language learning with the humanistic psychology school. His emphasis on developing comprehension skills before speaking links him with comprehension approach.

B. Principles 

1. Assimilation and skill can be increased significantly

2. Vocabulary retention can be increased through physical activities

3. Comprehension abilities precede productive skills in learning a language

4. The teaching of speaking should be delayed until comprhension skilla are estabilished

5. Skills acquaired through listening transfer to other skills

6. Teaching should emphasize meaning than form

7. Teaching should minimize learner stress

C. Approach

1. Theory of language

Asher (1982)  states that most of the grammatical structures of the target language and vocabulary items can be learned from the use of imperative.

Learners can acquaire adetailed cognitive map as well as the grammatical  structure of a language without recourse to abstractive.

2. Theory of learnig

Asher’s language learning theories are reminiscent of the views of other behavioral psychologists, such as, Arthur Jensen.

Asher has elaborated  an account of what he feels, fasilitates or inhibits foreign language learning. For this dimension  of his learning theory, he draws three learning hypotheses:

a)      The Bio-program

         TPR is a natural method which sees first and second language learning as a parallel process. Asher sees three central processes:

(1)   Children is develop listening competence before developing speaking ability

(2)   Children’s ability in listenig comprehension is acquaired because children are requaired to responsd physically.

(3)   Once a foundation on listening comprehension has been estabilished, speech evolves naturally and effortlessly out of it.

b)      Brain Lateralization

Asher sees TPR as directed to right-brain learning. He interprets that the brain is divided into hemisphere through motor movement. The left hemisphere is triggered to produce language when a sufficients amount of right hemisphere learning has taken place.

c)      Reduction of Stress

The important condition for succesful language learning is the absence of stress. The key to be free from stress in learning is to tap into natural bio-program for language development and thus to recapture the relaxed and pleasurable experiences.

D. Usual Classroom Techniques

1. This method needs a quiet large class. The number of students is 20 to 25 without limitation of age.

2. Units of lesson are not based on grading of grammar lesson.

3. Almost all materials are presented in commands.

4. There is no need to translate the material except in abstract words.

5. No homework is given to students.

6. Correction is given only at appropriate time.

7. The learning  is begun from short-simple sentences which can be visualized in class.

8. At the begining of each meeting, there is a summary of the previous lesson.

Asher (1982) provides a lesson-by-lesson account of a course taught according to TPR principles, which serves as a source of imformation on the procedures used in the TPR classroom. The class in the course proceeds in the following way:

1.      Review

The teacher does a fast-moving warm-up using commands.

2.      Commands using new verbs and new nouns. The teacher asks simple qoestions which the students could answer with a gesture or other physical responses.

3.      Role Reversal

The students readily volunteer to utter commands that manipulate the behaviour of the instructor.

4.      Reading and Writing

The instructor writes on the chalkboard each new vocabulary item and a sentence to illustrate the item. Then, she speaks each item and acts out the sentence. The students listen and copy the imformation.

E. Conclusions

            TPR is in a sense a revival and extension of palmer and palmer’s English Through Actions. It emphasize the role of comprehension in second language acquisition, Krashen (1983, 1989) regards provision of comprehensible input and reduction of stress as keys to succesful language acquisition, and he sees performing physical actions in the target language as a means of making input comprehensible and minimizing stress.

F. Results

1.  Asher and Langen found in 1972 that five children age 11 who were taugh German during 320 minutes could acquire the same result as that of 240 hours in language school for US Army.

2. Adults who learned for 32 hours could reach the same result as that of 75-150 hours using conventional method.

3. The result of one semester by using TPR is the same as that of two semesters by using ALM.