SW subordinates teaching to learning. Teaching guided by human potential for learning and by actual learning process of individual learners.

Questions that Silent Way teachers study all their lives — and that all teachers need to contemplate, and that we can discuss with out teachers and ask in the world beyond; our answers will change over time [“as of now…” this is what I think,” “this is what she knows…” — without judgment]:

• What are the main components of my professional work situation [as would-be language teacher]?

Learners & learning.

Teachers & teaching (beliefs about teaching, resources, continuing education…).

Language and its reality.

• Do I know anything about my Ss (even before I’ve met them) which will tell me that they can learn the second language?

If they have learned one language, they are equipped to learn others. (To learn a language means to function in a language.) They are experienced language learners.

Motivation (intrinsic or extrinsic) is part of their “equipment.” Intrinsic — their desire — is what counts, not the societal pressure: the human urge to to meet what they don’t know.

While they don’t learn the second language the same way as the first, they use the same resources/equipment: human energy.

Three types of human energy (Open concepts we need to keep pondering) which relate to the human potential for learning

Somatic energy (related to the body — the senses & the brain): voice, breathing…

Mental dynamics (the mind and perceptions, i.e. what our body does with the input): logic & reasoning & analyzing & synthesizing & hypothesizing & reasoning & coming to conclusions, making connections, imagination, emotion, memory, perseverance, discrimination (vs. judgment), categorizing, humor, attention, intuition, organization, capacity to transform oneself, experience but with beginner’s mind, curiosity & sense of wonder — back and forth between details and totality and back again.

Spiritual: awareness [what do I know, what don’t I know: grounded/human energy vs. religious]: commitment to knowing what is unknown, the will, affectivity (not the emotional kind) — the energy that connects one to the future and the unknown and that integrates that which one already knows with what is learning [Caleb called them “attributes of the self” and the more we exercise them the stronger they are]. Courage; self-awareness.

As teachers we need to address all three of these, or learning doesn’t happen. These are the things we encounter every day. Those who come to us t learn a second language are not just empty vessels: they’re experience language learners equipped to learn, full of the three types of human energy.

Memory distorts learning, because you become mechanical. If we teach through retaining, then we give practice (vs. repetition), which is not memorization. “Practice is essential for learning, while memorization dulls the mind.”

Functioning in a language means to function in it spontaneously, without thinking, with due respect to its reality, with the melody of it, with accuracy. For all these, we need somatic and mental dynamics.

Re. the mind: “When you spend it, it comes back.”

What is it that moves each of us learn?

• Any time we face the unknown, we take deliberate steps (the three types of energy) to relate and interact with the unknown and exercise our potential for learning. “Which mental, somatic or spiritual resources do I need to tap… or do I run away?”
• We transform the potential for learning into the process of learning by mobilizing our energies and interacting with them. Example: She hid a paperclip under paper and used it as an example of the processes that go into wanting to learn: where is the paperclip? Somatic: her hand picked up the paper.

I told Shakti about the paper I wrote for Elizabeth about aging in learning, because, I said, I keep forgetting what those around me say. She replied firmly. [Slightly paraphrased here]

“That doesn’t matter. Maybe what’s important is that the impact stayed with you. You might not remember what others say, but what’s important is that it has an impact and that you can creatively use what you took away. This is an old woman speaking. Don’t insult me! Remember that what others say is not what counts. It’s what you do with it.”

As teachers, don’t let Ss depend on you for answers.

Everything is relevant in learning. Mistakes are relevant and part of learning.

Resources and potential envelop all human beings, but actual learning processes are very individual. Reflections on the human learning process? Individualized- is not opposite of group-learning, but the learning that is taking place is individual.

[Everyone relates to a story in their own way (think of radio programs, with our own mental pictures).]

What is the process of learning?

• It is a process (using the three energies)
• It is individualized
• It goes on at every step (not just at the end when we can see the results); constant and internalized
• It is creative (otherwise it is not learning) and conducted by the learner
• Mistakes & forgetting, etc., are part of learner; hard for teachers to swallow, but nobody can learn without making mistakes. Forgetting is important because we remember what we need to.
• Unpredictable: remembering this keeps you from burning out in two years, and increases your patience
• Takes place in time (not clock time but within an era/life context — within our own time): “I had a good time with my friend.” You’re not referring to clock time but to your living experience with your friend;  highly subjective, and it encompasses how you felt, what you thought, etc.

Three phases of learning:

• Figuring out what you want to know: testing, experimenting, being lost, sorting…
• Consolidation: teachers need to be aware of how Ss are sorting things out and give challenges according to where they are
• Utilization

The students come to us vulnerable because someone has taught us that we’re the authority figures.

So… I have some sense of what my students are capable of doing in terms of learning the language. They’re experienced language learners, they’re equipped, and I know how, individually, each one learns, so I have to remain alert all the time to know how each one learns and how individually to respond to them.

So: What are the essentials of language that we must present to our Ss so that they can function in the language? What aspects do we present?

• Melody (pronunciation, etc.)
• Vocabulary: The Silent Way word charts focus on temporal (“because we live in time”), spatial (“because we live in space”), and prepositions (“which nobody can teach”), adjectives and so on (so that the nature of things can become visible) = to be able to function in language and express self. Functional language is a different thing.
• Behavior (e.g. syntax)
• Meaning (“Words don’t mean a thing. Meanings are in the situation. And we perceive the meaning in the situation and extract it from the situation and give it to the words, and from then on, words have meaning.”) Words are “sounds and sound patterns.”

Formal grammar is if you want to learn about the language, but not necessarily how to use it.

Self-expression  She suggests that social elements become very demanding and that it’s important to start with the personal (self-expression). “Socially we use the language not to communicate but to hide the truth.” (“If communication’ takes place, it’s a miracle.”) It’s not either/or but start with self-expression.

It’s so cute that she refers to her late husband as “Gattegno.”

How do we teach such well-equipped learners these aspects of the language: learners who generate their own learning process in their own time, unpredictably? How do you keep from walking on their autonomy, how do you let them explore?

• Give minimum to let them get the maximum
• Build their confidence through topics you choose, and their relevance to Ss’ lives
• Challenge them to mobilize their equipment
• Serving them = subordination of teaching over learning
• Present patterns instead of rules, so they can put on their own imprint

“Babies as scientists” [said the guy with Shakti]

Silence in the Silent Way

• Don’t teach them what they already know so it’s your responsiblity to find out what each S already knows.
• Don’t teach them what they can figure out for themselves. If you tell them, they will be informed, but they won’t know [this is a commonly used principle at SIT]; a challenge for T’s not to “teach”
• Mistakes are part of learning process so Ts are just supposed to see what they can do differently.

“If you use language as a vehicle for learning, not as the aim for teaching, then you are serving them. (Like CBI). When you present any topic, give them practice in any area, have them working on the melody or the structure or the changes that take place with number and gender and tense… all of that, while you are presenting that, you are watching how much they are mobilizing themselves, how much they are becoming a better learner. And the language that is being learned is the byproduct of them becoming better learners…” Ss think “this is what I can do as of now” and that’s fine.

Gattegno calls all this “the subordination of teaching to learning.”

Historically: teacher-centered —> learner-centered —> learning-centered [the last being Caleb’s contribution]

• Joseph talked about the shift this talk brought about in him from “me me me” to “them them them”
• Yet Dena had the opposite reaction, thinking when Ss don’t comprehend, she’ll think: “What did I do wrong?”