One of the mottos of the Silent Way is ‘The teacher works with the students; the students work on the language.’ What do you think this means? Should this principle be applied in the current English learning and teaching context in Vietnam? Why?

For more than a century, 'language educators sought to solve the problems of language teaching by focusing almost exclusively on Method' (Stern, 1983: 452), with methodologists (and presumably teachers) debating which method or approach was the most effective for teaching English – perhaps Audiolingualism, the Silent Way, or Communicative Language Teaching, among others. Caleb Gattegno devised the Silent Way method of language learning (SW). The teacher's approach, which entails talking as little as possible rather than engaging in conversation with the students, is one of the most remarkable features of the Silent Way. To put it another way, the learner, not the instructor, should be in command. "The teacher works with the students; the students work on the language, " is one of the Silent Way's mottos. This is a crucial idea that underpins the Silent Way. This indicates that the instructor is a technician or engineer. 'Only the learner can perform the learning, ' but the teacher may offer the required help, concentrate the students' viewpoints, push their awareness, and design exercises to preserve their language facility by relying on what his pupils already know. When students are attempting to relate to and connect with new difficulties, the instructor should accept their autonomy. It is the students' job to make use of what they already know, to eliminate any obstacles that hinder them from giving the learning activity their full attention, and to actively engage in language discovery. As a result, the students acquire information through the instruments they use to study, know, and identify with the language more each day. The teacher's role is to direct students' attention, foster self-reflection, and offer appropriate verbal and nonverbal criticism. Students, on the other hand, are encouraged to talk as much as possible. To summarize, the primary premise of the Silent Way is that learning is preferred to teaching. Students are given responsibility for their own learning, and the teacher's role is reduced to that of a facilitator. As a consequence, the instructor remains mute, affecting only the pupils, and allowing them to discover the language's properties for themselves. In the current state of English learning and teaching in Vietnam, this strategy, in my view, should be used. Teachers are used to teaching foreign languages in Vietnamese using conventional techniques such as grammar translation for big groups or practicing listening and speaking since the condition of English teaching in Vietnam is still uneven. Furthermore, despite having access to a variety of modern resources, students' self-study and self-study abilities remain passive, relying on the teacher's instructions. Students usually demand more explicit instruction and correction. Other methods, such as the Silent Way, are less well-known and utilized. As a nutshell, adopting the Silent Way approach into English teaching and learning in Vietnam is an unique and vital step in fostering students' independence, self-discipline, creativity, and feeling of responsibility. That means introducing more discovery learning into our classroom activities and offering less teacher talk than usual to allow students to find things out for themselves could be beneficial. One of the benefits of the Silent Way is that you learn how to pronounce things perfectly. This gives you confidence in the language. The approach of the Silent Way seems to be very fascinating. The emphasis on problem-solving and discovery learning activities is a strength of the technique. It gives students an alternative to the endless repeats and explanations that are common in many foreign language classes, and it makes it difficult for them not to figure things out on their own. Students must take responsibility for their own learning, and it is the teacher's role to help them do so. Others may perceive The Silent Way as harsh, with the teacher's silence serving as a deterrent rather than a motivator. The Silent Way has a significant disadvantage in that learning how to do it is incredibly difficult for a teacher. It is quite straightforward to offer students with materials and guide them through a textbook; however, creating classroom settings in which students may learn the language for themselves is far more difficult. “The students work on the language and the teacher works on the students” Gattegno mentioned it, but he never asserted that it was simple. I might acknowledge that the disadvantage revealed to me that the Silent Way approach may jeopardize learning if the teacher provides just minimal assistance. Some Vietnamese students may find it difficult or unpleasant to join in the discourse while the teacher remains silent. However, I anticipate that this issue will become less common, especially now that the Silent Way approach allows learners to design their own learning at their own pace. In other words, the teacher's silence allows students to assume cognitive and affective control of their own learning. For the contemporary Vietnamese environment, I feel it will be a useful and effective method of teaching and learning English.