Silence in language learning is commonly viewed negatively, with language teachers often struggling to interpret learner silence and identify whether it is part of communication, mental processing or low engagement. This book addresses silence in language pedagogy from a positive perspective, translating research into practice in order to inform teaching and to advocate greater use of positive silence in the classroom.

The first half of the book examines the existing research into silence, and the second half provides research-informed practical strategies and classroom tasks. It offers applicable principles for task design that utilises rich resources, which include visual arts, mental representation, poetry, music, and other innovative tools, to allow both silence and speech to express their respective and interrelated roles in learning. Comprehensive yet accessible, it is essential reading for academic researchers and students in in applied linguistics, TESOL and language teaching, as well as for language teachers and educators.

Table of Contents

1. Embracing silence in education; 2. The presence of silence in second language acquisition; 3. Trends in silence research; 4. Elements that shape pedagogy for silence; 5. Problematising silence; 6. Ways of addressing classroom silence; 7. Online silence; 8. Coping with undesirable online silence; 9. Silence in ELT task design; 10. Some ideas for silence research.