I am in the business of promoting drama in the classroom, and people generally imagine that this involves vocalizing and acting things out. It often does of course, but drama involves silence and stillness too and silent moments in theatre shows are often the strongest of all. Silent moments in the classroom can also be especially powerful and this article looks at some of these quiet classroom moments and considers what is special about them. It also describes a number of activities that teachers can use to generate silence in their classroom.
Ideas come in silence.
A type of classroom moment that I especially enjoy is when you put the students into groups and give them a task which requires them to up with original ideas. The first moment that they are together is often silent as they stare at each other and wait for ideas to come.
Generally ideas come in silence, people ask us about something and we say Ssh! Let me think! Ideas do not come when somebody is making noise or continually talking to you. So, to apply this to teaching situations, if you want your students to have original thoughts during your lesson you have to keep quiet yourself and allow them the space they need for those thoughts to arrive.
Emotion comes in silence.
Another thing that arrives in silence is emotion. This is demonstrated well in the activity A Dynamic Way to Work with Roleplays, which I describe in another blog post here. The main idea of the activity is that when you give students a roleplay, you let them act it out two times. The first time they have to do it in silence without speaking and using large gestures to communicate the situation. Then they play it out for a second time, still using the large gestures, but adding words too……
Acting the situation out silently has the effect of making students emotionally connected to the situation. This is mostly due to the movement, but it is no coincidence that it also happens in silence (apart from the laughter that usually accompanies this activity). The result of being emotionally connected is that when the words are added to the scenes the second time around, those words are usually delivered in a more natural way than is usual for roleplays.
We also see how emotion is related to silence when actors play out a drama. Consider this short dialogue…
PERSON A – Why did you do this?
PERSON B – I don’t know. I didn’t think it would be a problem.
PERSON A – I can’t go to work now. Why don’t you think before you do things?
PERSON B – I’m sorry, okay?
PERSON A – You are so selfish. I really want to hit you now.
PERSON B – Go on then. I am not afraid of you.
This is a very dramatic dialogue, but if the text is delivered quickly, without pauses between the lines it will not be very effective. This is because the emotion is not carried by the words, the emotion is communicated in the actions, the looks and gestures that the characters have between the words. To say that another way, what they say to each other is not as important as how they are affected by what is said. How they feel is what is really important here and we need to have silence between the lines in order for the audience to understand how they are being effected by what the other person is saying.
Imagine this same dialogue played with gaps of 4 or 5 seconds between each line. It could play out something like this …
PERSON A – Why did you do this?
(Person A stares at Person B, Person B looks back feeling uncomfortable.)
PERSON A – I don’t know. I didn’t think it would be a problem.
(Person A looks back at Person B in a slightly confrontational way. Person B starts to become angry and defensive).
PERSON A – I can’t go to work now. Why don’t you think before you do things?
(Person A makes a gesture of frustration and steps towards Person B. Person B shrugs their shoulders.)
And so on …
The silent pauses are necessary to make this emotional scene work.
Silence is part of the classroom atmosphere.
The main times when a class goes quiet is when students are given a task that requires writing or quiet reading of a text. In this case it is up to the teacher if they want absolute silence in their class or if students are allowed to talk to each other occasionally.
One way for a teacher to get silence in their class (and probably the most common) is to just tell their class to be quiet, or they will be in trouble. The best kind of silence though is when nobody in the class even wants to talk because they are enjoying a task and completely focused on it. That may sound like wishful thinking, but it can happen (it usually does happen when classes do the activity Jigsaw Writing described below). Silent times are part of the collage that make up the learning atmosphere and one of the tools that a teacher can use to construct a successful lesson.
Jigsaw Writing
This is a well-known activity that can be used to generate a lot of written material in a short time. Each student has a piece of paper And they start by writing the title of a story at the top of the page. The titles can be anything, I usually prepare four different titles, three fairy tales and the title / It was a stormy night in winter …. (which is how that story has to start). Students are then given two minutes to start the stories, just the first few sentences, writing as much as they can in the time. Once the two minute are finished they pass the paper on to the person sitting on one side of them and receive a new paper (with a different story) from the person on the other side. They are given a moment to read what is on this new paper before being given another two minutes to continue this new story, again writing as much as possible. The papers are passed on again and the process is repeated. I usually allow five or six rounds before announcing that the next round will be the last and so they should try to finish the story they have.
Notes on the activity
This is a great way to get students writing a lot and enjoying it. It is also a good way to have them working quietly and enjoying it.
It is a great activity to do at the start of a course with a new class as the class generate a lot of written material which gives a clear picture of the level of the class and specific language issues that they are having trouble with.
You can take sentences from these stories and use them to demonstrate mistakes to the whole class because the writer of the chosen sentence is anonymous.
Pass the Clap
The group stand in a circle. The leader turns to one of the people next to them and together, they try to clap hands at the same time (i.e. the teacher claps their hands and the student claps their hands, they just try to do it so that the two claps sound at exactly the same time). Then the person who just clapped with the teacher turns around and does the same thing with the other person next to them, they try to clap at exactly the same time. Then that person turns and tries to clap with the next person and so on around the circle.
To be clear, only two people in the circle are clapping together at any time, the others are waiting for their turn.
Notes on the activity.
When playing this game, on the first time around the circle you should encourage students to take their time, make eye contact and very slowly and deliberately do their best to clap at the same time.
If they do not quite get it right, never mind, just move on to the next pair. As the clap gets passed around the circle more times, a rhythm will develop.
Once the clap has been around the circle and got back to you, maybe make some comments on how it went, and then turn to the first student and start again.
Often a student will sabotage their turn by intentionally hesitating or clapping quickly to make it difficult for thier partner. In this case I share the joke of what they have done and gently ask them not to and to try and keep the clap moving around the circle for the sake of the game.
If it goes very well (usually after some practice) the clap will move around the circle very quickly and feel as if it has its own life. In this case the game becomes exhilarating. People become very focused as they wait their turn to catch the clap and pass it on as quickly as possible.
It is unusual to get to this stage, especially if you are playing for the first time.
Eventually the game will break down, either because a student who is waiting for their turn will lose focus on the activity so that when it is their turn to clap, they are looking the other way and the chain is broken, or it can break down because the clap is simply moving around the circle too quickly for people to keep up.
I often play this game when I am working with a new group for the first time. The game helps you to easily see which students are having trouble focusing, and it gives a general feeling of what level of focus and participation you can expect from the group going forwards.
It is a collaborative group game, there are no winners.
It is a silent game with no talking involved, so it is a good one to turn to with young learners when you want to calm things down.
The Zombie Game
In this game there is an area with chairs spaced out in it. The group are each sitting in a chair. One person gets up and goes to the edge of the area, leaving their chair empty. This person is the zombie. The zombie has to walk intentionally very slowly across the area (for instance by walking in a way that the back of the foot in front touches the front of the foot behind it). The zombie is trying to sit in an empty chair. However, when the group sees the zombie getting close to an empty chair, one of them can go and sit in it. However, when one of the groups goes to sit in the empty chair, their chair becomes empty and the zombie can start walking towards that chair. Somebody else then has to sit in that chair, but then they leave an empty chair …It usually does not take too long before the zombie gets to sit down.
Notes on the activity
This is a fun game and trains teamwork as it is important to anticipate what others are going to do and then react quickly.
The main group who are trying to stop the zombie from sitting down should try to do it in silence, just communicating with looks.
