Part of the fun of silent film is that like British pantomime, the audience isn't supposed to passively watch, but participate. Intertitles are made to be declaimed dramatically, heroes are cheered, villains hissed, laughter is expected and the eternal line "He's right behind you!" shouted at the top of everyone's lungs. Quiet? Shushing? Do you think it's going to make a difference? In an intimate setting (less than, say twenty people) it's expected that people will try to fill in their own dialogue, or at least do a bit of narration to the people near them "And now, she's going to feel really bad..."
The source of all this is my own Maymie, who, as a first-generation Swedish-American learned how to read in this fashion, and which has been corroborated by many others, who credited "the flickers" as how they learned English. Sure made for a fun night at our house, watching them on WNET Saturday night...Hope you do so with your own kids...