English the Silent Way: A film for language teachers

This film shows how a Silent Way teacher works. We’ve sampled every two hours of a week-long intensive English class that teacher Don Cherry gave in Tokyo in 2016 to give you a unique insight into this way of working.
You’ll see how a Silent Way teacher works and some of the reasons why we work this way, including:
* how and why to teach silently;
* the priority given to pronunciation; and
* how and why to work on grammar using the function words
You’ll see the students and the teacher at work together and get an immersive view of their interaction and its impact on their learning.
If you would like to see the transcription of the narration, then it's available here:
silentway.online/wp-content/u...
It’s very rare to be able to see video from an entire language course, especially filmed in such detail, so we are incredibly grateful to Don Cherry for giving us access to this footage. All the students in the class had at least school-level English prior to the start of the course.
A complete video record of the course is available on Don Cherry ‘s KZbin channel at:
/ donaldecherry
To find out more about the Silent Way go to: silentway.online/
Chapters:
00:00 Introduction
00:31 The Sound-colour rectangle chart
03:32 Working on sounds
06:37 Would you show us your name?
09:37 Interlude 1
10:24 ‘Three’, ‘thirty’, ‘thirty-three’
13:18 A telephone number
17:36 Interlude 2
18:25 One of the ones
21:48 Magnets on the rectangle chart
24:45 Straws and cups
27:39 Interlude 3
29:04 Power outlet
32:25 The wall picture
34:49 Interlude 4
36:35 A piece of gum
39:22 Cartoon
41:57 Orange County
45:57 Epilogue

[@nicoletasurdu7064]

This material is pure gold for all teachers who want to approach pronunciation teaching and teaching in general from a different perspective. Viewing and working on pronunciation as a motor skill and on speaking a language as a skill transforms one's teaching (and the teacher herself/himself) and the results are far better. Thank you so much for this very useful material. I'm sure many hours of work went into producing it and I'm grateful to those who have put their valuable time into making such a powerful material.

[@sloma6408]

I feel it is an effective way, but sometimes I find it necessary for the teacher to speak and guide the students in the target language, which will help them acquire more useful phrases, words, and pronunciation

[@RoslynYoungBouclans]

We've found that 'guiding' students as you suggest ends up with them having to revise the work later. We find 'do it once and do it well' works better in the long run.

[@WriterSRAustin]

5:12 ~ I love how he gives feedback to the students by joking about the Chicago or New York accent. The students are engaged and laughing.

[@malkauns16]

Yes, it’s a nice moment isn’t it. And quietly instructive too: the English language accepts a wide range of vowel sounds.

[@lukedlb]

excellent, beautiful and joyful. Exactly how a lesson should be.

[@silentway.online]

Couldn't agree more! Thanks for watching and for commenting.

[@monteroblog2686]

Good, excellent material for teaching English..

[@sharahrahmadhana4238]

This video really helps me understand how to use silent method. Thank you!

[@malkauns16]

Glad you found it useful. Just get in touch if you’d like to know more, or check our website: silentway.online

[@caiomonegate4555]

excelent content! You guys are amazing. Thank you so much. Have a great life!

[@silentway.online]

Glad you got something out of our videos! Please keep watching and keep letting us know what you think!

[@9hiwa330]

26:57 best moment of the film, very creative. Perfect!

[@silentway.online]

Yes! This is a super moment, isn’t it. Best wishes and if you’d like to find out more please get in touch.

[@Layla-df7hp]

I would love to take a Silent Way class in Italian

[@silentway.online]

Layla, please could you email me at [e-mail] and we'll put you in touch with someone. Best wishes! Laurence

[@UmidaHasanzoda]

Don Cherry

[@timeinvestor4730]

There is a perception-condition called Synesthesia. I reckon this method can seem to Synesthetes really chaotic. Due to the large variable of colours, that does not suits.

[@silentway.online]

Hello. Thank you for your post. At Pronunciation Science, we looked into synesthesia when Rob Drummond's article appeared in 2012. You can see it here: www.robdrummond.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/baap2012.pdf As you can see, there is not complete agreement on which colour to use for which sound, and this is a complication for us. Caleb Gattegno invented the use of colour in the late 1950s, and then used the same colours in his work on about 40 languages. Some of this work was lost, but it is now being reinvented, and you can see examples of languages here: silentway.online/charts-for-various-languages/ and also here: www.pronunciationscience.com/materials/other-languages/ My favourites are Bangla (Bengali) and Farsi. If you take a few minutes to look at them closely, you will see how the use of colour helps students understand the writing systems of these languages. Both the students and the teacher always write in black & white, colour is only used to show the same sounds, whatever the spelling.

[@pablojosemorenoruiz9498]

Silent way to learn spanish, please.

[@silentway.online]

Certainly! Go here to find an online Silent Way Spanish teacher - Cesar - thesilentwaycollective.com/ Best wishes.

[@kevtherev8194]

for PERFECT pronunciation only - but...not english, not FLUENCY

[@RoslynYoungBouclans]

Japanese students find pronunciation very difficult, so quite a lot of time is spent on getting it right it early in a course. Fluency comes later when the students’ pronunciation is good enough for them to begin working on it. It takes time to become fluent while maintaining good pronunciation.

[@kevtherev8194]

@@RoslynYoungBouclans THANKS for reply. However, this way will make those students VERY nervous every time they (try to) speak; and, that anxiety will BLOCK their ability

[@RoslynYoungBouclans]

@@kevtherev8194 Kev, did you actually watch the film? When you watch the students working, do you think they are very nervous and anxious? I certainly don't. If you go to this link, you'll see a different class working during the break, just for fun. This is not what students do when they are anxious! kzbin.info/www/bejne/gYrWcoGhj8mrgLc

[@malkauns16]

@@kevtherev8194 The students certainly don’t look at all nervous to me, right through to the last minutes of the course. And my personal experience is quite the opposite of what you suggest-I feel far more confident speaking the two languages (French and Japanese) that I’ve been learning using the Silent Way, than any other languages I’ve ever tried to learn. Indeed, I recently gave an impromptu speech, in French, to a group of French language teachers, in France, which I enjoyed doing very much!

[@kevtherev8194]

@@malkauns16 THANK YOU. You are a sincere woman