SILENCE WAY

The teacher uses silence for multiple purposes in the Silent Way. It is used to focus students' attention, to elicit student responses, and to encourage them to correct their own errors. Even though teachers are often silent, they are still active; they will commonly use techniques such as mouthing words and using hand gestures to help the students with their pronunciation. Teachers will also encourage students to help their peers.

In the Silent Way students are seen as bringing a vast amount of experience and knowledge with them to the classroom; namely, their first language. The teacher capitalizes on this knowledge when introducing new material, always building from the known to the unknown. The students begin their study of the language by studying its sound system. The sounds are associated to different colors using a sound-color chart that is specific to the language being learned. The teacher first introduces sounds that are already present in the students' native language, and then progresses to sounds that are new to them. These sound-color associations are later used to help the students with spelling, reading, and pronunciation.