Procedure. A Silent Way lesson typically follows a standard format

A Silent Way lesson typically follows a standard format. The first part of the lesson focuses on pronunciation. Depending on student level, the class might work on sounds, phrases, or even sentences designated on the Fidel chart. At the beginning stage, the teacher will model the ap­propriate sound after pointing to a symbol on the chart. Later, the teacher will silently point to individual symbols and combinations of symbols, and monitor student utterances. The teacher may say a word and have a student guess what sequence of symbols comprised the word. The pointer is used to indicate stress, phrasing, and intonation. Stress can be shown by touching certain symbols more forcibly than others when pointing out a word. Intonation and phrasing can be demonstrated by tapping on the chart to the rhythm of the utterance.

After practice with the sounds of the language, sentence patterns, structure, and vocabulary are practiced. The teacher models an utterance while creating a visual realization of it with the colored rods. After modeling the utterance, the teacher will have a student attempt to pro­duce the utterance and will indicate its acceptability. If a response is incorrect, the teacher will attempt to reshape the utterance or have another student present the correct model. After a structure is introduced and understood, the teacher will create a situation in which the students can practice the structure through the manipulation of the rods. Vari­ations on the structural theme will be elicited from the class using the rods and charts.

The sample lesson that follows illustrates a typical lesson format. The language being taught is Thai, for which this is the first lesson.

1. Teacher empties rods onto the table.

2. Teacher picks up two or three rods of different colors, and after each rod is picked up says: [mai].

3. Teacher holds up one rod of any color and indicates to a student that a response is required. Student says: [mai]. If response is incorrect, teacher elicits response from another student, who then models for the first student.

4. Teacher next picks up a red rod and says: [mai sii daeng].

5. Teacher picks up a green rod and says: [mai sii khiaw].

6. Teacher picks up either a red or green rod and elicits response from stu­dent. If response is incorrect, procedure in step 3 is followed (student modeling).

7. Teacher introduces two or three other colors in the same manner. Teacher shows any of the rods whose forms were taught previously and elicits student response. Correction technique is through student model­ing, or the teacher may help student isolate error and self-correct.

9. When mastery is achieved, teacher puts one red rod in plain view and says: [mai sii daeng nung an].

10. Teacher then puts two red rods in plain view and says: [mai sii daeng song an].

11. Teacher places two green rods in view and says: [mai sii khiaw song an].

12. Teacher holds up two rods of a different color and elicits student response.

13. Teacher introduces additional numbers, based on what the class can comfortably retain. Other colors might also be introduced.

14. Rods are put in a pile. Teacher indicates, through his or her own ac­tions, that rods should be picked up, and the correct utterance made. All the students in the group pick up rods and make utterances. Peer-group correction is encouraged.

15. Teacher then says: [kep mai sii daeng song an].

16. Teacher indicates that a student should give the teacher the rods called for. Teacher asks other students in the class to give him or her the rods that he or she asks for. This is all done in the target language through unambiguous actions on the part of the teacher.

17. Teacher now indicates that the students should give each other com­mands regarding the calling for of rods. Rods are put at the disposal of the class.

18. Experimentation is encouraged. Teacher speaks only to correct ah incor­ rect utterance, if no peer group correction is forthcoming.

13. Give the background of Communicative language teaching. describe it in terms of approach, design and procedure. Background. The origins of Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) are to be found in the changes in the British language teaching tradition dating from the late 1960s. Until then, Situational Language Teaching (see Chapter 3) represented the major British approach to teaching English as a foreign language. In Situational Language Teaching, language was taught by practicing basic structures in meaningful situation-based activities. But just as the linguistic theory underlying Audiolingualism was rejected in the United States in the mid-1960s, British applied linguists began to call into question the theoretical assumptions underlying Situational Language Teaching:

Communicative language teaching is different from other approaches because it focuses on student interaction with the teacher and other students as a means of creating language skills in a new language. This clearly is different from other forms of teaching language, first of all because its goal, as the name implies, is communication. Instead of long lessons of memorization and drilling in a new language, communicative language teaching relies on the participation of the student in conversation with the instructor and other students as a means of making the new language relevant to the student and therefore easier to learn and recall. Both mother tongue and target language. Interesting and meaningful materials, such as linguistic games, role plays, and problem solving materials. Technology—films, videos, TV, computers, can be used as teaching aids. Classroom goals are focused on all of the components of communicative competence and not restricted to grammatical or linguistic competence. Students learn to use the appropriate language forms in the different places. Communicative activities include functional communicative activities and social interaction activities. Teachers are assistants, guides, counselors and group process managers. Students are expected to interact with each other rather than with the teacher. Learners should take the responsibility of the failed communication. Language is created by the individual through trial and error. Correction of errors may be absent or infrequent. Students can speak fluently but not accurately. Students are given “real-life” situations that are often explored through role-playing exercises in which the student uses the new language. Conversations between members of the instructional group are also utilized in the training. The logic of such an approach is obvious because the benefit of immersion, where a person spends time in a place where a new language is spoken and begins to pick up the language, is a well-known aspect of language learning. Teachers in communicative classrooms will find themselves talking less and listening more--becoming active facilitators of their students' learning. Because of the increased responsibility to participate, students may find they gain confidence in using the target language in general. Students are more responsible managers of their own learning. The main objective of CLT is to develop the communicative competence of the learners. Learners are involved in the learning process so that language develops automatically. Language is speech and not writing. This implies that the emphasis is on correct intonation. Listening and speaking should be taught before reading and writing. Language is a set of habit. Learning is controlled through behaviour. It teaches the language not about the language. Instructions are given in the target language. Students’ native language interferes as little as possible with the students’ attempt to acquire the target language. Teaching is directed to provide students with a native-speaker-like model. Errors are carefully avoided because they lead to the formation of bad habits. Positive reinforcement helps the student to develop correct habits. Students are encouraged to learn to respond to both verbal and nonverbal stimuli. The teacher is regarded as an orchestra leader-conducting, guiding and controlling the students’ behavior in the target language. Students are taken to be the imitators of the teacher’s model or the tapes. The dialogue is the chief means of presenting vocabulary, structures and it is learned through repetition and imitation. Mimicry, memorization and pattern drills are the practice techniques that are emphasized.

Approach. The communicative approach in language teaching starts from a theory of language as communication. The goal of language teaching is to develop what Hymes (1972) referred to as "communicative com­petence." Hymes coined this term in order to contrast a communica­tive view of language and Chomsky's theory of competence. Chomsky held that linguistic theory is concerned primarily with an ideal speaker-listener in a completely homogeneous speech community, who knows its language per­fectly and is unaffected by such grammatically irrelevant conditions as mem­ory limitation, distractions, shifts of attention and interest, and errors (random or characteristic) in applying his knowledge of the language in ac­tual performance. For Chomsky, the focus of linguistic theory was to characterize the abstract abilities speakers possess that enable them to produce gram­matically correct sentences in a language.

At the level of language theory, Communicative Language Teaching has a rich, if somewhat eclectic, theoretical base. Some of the charac­teristics of this communicative view of language follow.

1. Language is a system for the expression of meaning.

2. The primary function of language is for interaction and communication.

3. The structure of language reflects its functional and communicative uses.

4. The primary units of language are not merely its grammatical and struc­tural features, but categories of functional and communicative meaning as exemplified in discourse.

The teacher has two main roles: the first role is to facilitate the communica­tion process between all participants in the classroom, and between these participants and the various activities and texts. The second role is to act as an independent participant within the learning-teaching group. The latter role is closely related to the objectives of the first role and arises from it. These roles imply a set of secondary roles for the teacher; first, as an organizer of resources and as a resource himself, second as a guide within the classroom procedures and activities.... A third role for the teacher is that of researcher and learner, with much to contribute in terms of appropriate knowledge and abilities, actual and observed experience of the nature of learning and organi­zational capacities.