How to teach pronunciation using silent way.

[Mans-mov]

Can any one till me how to teach pronunciation using
silent way?

[BobK]

Originally Posted by Mans-mov

Can any one till me how to teach pronunciation using
silent way?

I've never heard of this, and have no idea why anyone might suppose it would work. When uttering speech sounds you use muscles. When speaking another language you exercise muscles you didn't know you had. I suppose you can make some kind of progress by describing the new movements ('Round your lips'. 'Use the tip of your tongue instead of the blade' ...) - that way you can learn about pronunciation. But in order to learn pronunciation you have to make a noise.

b

[bob123]

I believe that the silent way in teaching pronunciation refers to a method from the 1980s of second language instruction which emphasized the exposure to spoken language without requiring the students to speak. This approach is based on a theory of second language acquisition (Krashen) that states that language acquisition requires primarily comprehensible input, in this case spoken English. This follows the model of children learning their first language whereby they are silent for a period of time as they absorb and process language. Once their understanding reaches a critical point, they begin to speak. So this method was applied to beginning second language learners, not higher levels.

So the teaching methodology following this approach would be to expose the learners to much spoken English without requiring them to respond out loud. You would speak or present spoken English while highlighting the pronunciation feature in order to facilitate noticing. This is the key to this approach. Your students will start to speak when they have processed enough language, so don't force it. This may take weeks or months. But again, this approach really would only apply to beginners.

These days this approach isn't followed as much to my knowledge. Now producing language is viewed as important for acquisition, even for new learners.

[bob123]

Sorry, in my post above, I confused "silent period" based teaching with the "silent way" approach. It's been awhile since I studied these. The silent way was based on students discovering language structure on their own in the classroom with the teacher using a minimum of talking. I don't see how this could be applied to pronunciation. Here's a good description from onestopenglish.com:

"Silent Way originated in the early 1970s and was the brainchild of the late Caleb Gattegno. The last line of Benjamin Franklin’s famous quote about teaching and learning can be said to lie at the heart of Silent Way. The three basic tenets of the approach are that learning is facilitated if the learner discovers rather than remembers or repeats, that learning is aided by physical objects, and that problem-solving is central to learning. The use of the word "silent" is also significant, as Silent Way is based on the premise that the teacher should be as silent as possible in the classroom in order to encourage the learner to produce as much language as possible.As far as the presentation of language is concerned, Silent Way adopts a highly structural approach, with language taught through sentences in a sequence based on grammatical complexity, described by some as a "building-block" approach.


The structural patterns of the target language are presented by the teacher and the grammar "rules" of the language are learnt inductively by the learners. Cuisenaire rods (small coloured blocks of varying sizes originally intended for the teaching of mathematics) are often used to illustrate meaning (the physical objects mentioned above). New items are added sparingly by the teacher and learners take these as far as they can in their communication until the need for the next new item becomes apparent. The teacher then provides this new item by modelling it very clearly just once. The learners are then left to use the new item and to incorporate it into their existing stock of language, again taking it as far as they can until the next item is needed and so on."

[iainmac]

It would be a bit strange to deal with pronunciation 'Silently'; a bit like learning to dance from dancers dancing when they're in the next room.
My feeling is that the Silent Way is very much a minority approach: not many learners feel instinctively drawn to it and not many teachers have the deep-rooted patience and skills to work with it long-term.

[taghavi]

Hello everyone,

Since the writer of the given question comes from Iran, he/she can refer to the similar sounds between Farsi and English. According to Freeman, the teacher points to a number of blocks of color without saying anything. the blocks of color represent the sounds of English vowels close to the simple vowel of Farsi.
for instance, you can point out "e" in "eslam" in Farsi and the similar sound, which pronounced in English like "a" in " appear" .
First the students, pronunced the given sound with their mother tongue and after being familiar with that sound, they will say in the same way in new language.
Of course, developing such this way is very tedious, and a teacher needs to be more patient.