To remedy the first concern, LINC held monthly meetings in which members shared ideas they were trying in their classes and materials they had created. To remedy the second concern, the organization began to “self-publish” inexpensively, and to make their own materials from students’ own words, so that their students wouldn’t have to lay out large sums of money for books that were quickly irrelevant. Out of the monthly meetings came reports of new philosophies and approaches in the field of language learning, particularly whole-person, student-centered methods that arose in the 1960s. LINC organized workshops with some of these educational innovators such as the close-in staff associated with Father/Dr. Charles Curran (originator of Counseling Learning/ Community Language Learning), and encouraged one another to attend workshops at Columbia University’s Teachers College and at Educational Solutions, where Dr. Caleb Gattegno was holding weekend workshops on the Silent Way.
provided important information to teachers, who could then use what they were hearing from their students to reflect on what was and wasn’t effective in their teaching. I also learned for myself, and in observing new teachers, that teachers shouldn’t ask for reflection and feedback unless they are open to taking in without defensiveness what students had to say. Dr. G would say that the students were there to learn the subject, and the teacher was there to learn the students so as to serve their needs well. Of course, the notion of silence – not a silent class as some people have misunderstood, but the silence of the teacher when students needed to practice – was central to Dr. G’s teaching. Beyond the Cuisenaire Rods and the Fidels and Words in Color, we saw that teachers, listening to what their students were saying, could learn what students knew already, or what they needed to learn, or practice. From Dr. G it became apparent that the best “curriculum” and “materials” for each student came not from the school system or the publishing companies, but from the students themselves.
It is the teacher’s responsibility to create an atmosphere in class where mistakes are encouraged.
With my LINC colleagues and other teachers, I spent many exciting weekends at Educational Solutions considering what worked for me as a learner, and what might work better for my high school, college, and ultimately, adult basic education ESOL students.
I have strong memories of those weekends. When we began each weekend, Dr. G would ask people to introduce themselves. If people said about themselves, “I’ve been teaching for 20 years,” Dr. G would interrupt and say, “No, you’ve been teaching for one year and repeating the same things you did the first year 19 more times.” At the end of each weekend, Dr. G would ask people for their reflections – what they had learned. The idea that articulating what was new and valuable for you is central to an active learning experience was one of the first new practices I incorporated into my classes. Those reflections from learners also
What those of us who became Silent Way practitioners also learned is that teachers don’t need to teach what students already know and understand; we need to give opportunities for them to raise their awareness, develop their own criteria, and practice until they’ve attained mastery. However, we also can’t assume that silence is an absolute principle: if students don’t already know something, the teacher needs to set up clear examples that enable the students to figure out how our language works. Dr. G showed us that if a teacher demonstrates something just once, it raises the bar on students’ attention; they can’t afford to miss that one-time demonstration, whether it’s the teacher or another student who is demonstrating. Another one of Dr. G’s teachings was about “ogdens” – the price each of us has to pay in order to learn something new. An ogden, we learned through trial and error, is the process of trial and error that requires
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