Observational/Listening

Previously, this stage has been referred to as the "silent" or "nonverbal" period because children tend to be quiet when engaged in challenging school activities. However, what children are typically doing at this stage is spending most of their energy listening in order to make sense of their new language and observing all the gestures and environmental cues associated with this new language.

Children may not be talking at school during this phase, but that does not mean they are not attending to and processing language. Like infants learning to speak their first language, second language learners develop their understanding of the language before they are able to use it to communicate. However, they will still use their home language and whatever they know of their second language in more relaxed situations. During this time children begin actively to "crack the code" of the second language.

During this phase children may prefer to use other means to communicate (gestures, facial expressions, sounds), rather than "talk" (speech) with their teachers. Most children spend only a month or two in this stage. However, it can take up to six months, as noted by Hakuta (1997) in his observations of a Japanese girl attending kindergarten in the U.S., who did not speak for six months.