A Research On The Classroom Silence In English Listening And Speaking Class Of Junior High School

Oral participation in English class is essential for improving language proficiency of Chinese students because they usually learn English in English class instead of their daily life.However,Chinese students have always been labelled as being “silent” and “high in score but poor in ability” for they are often in a state of silence in class.For many years,researchers have been focusing on the classroom silence in foreign language classes of higher education stage,while little attention has been paid to the classroom silence in junior high school.Given all that,a research on the classroom silence in English listening and speaking class was conducted in Xi'an Qujiang No.1 High School,dealing with the current status of,grade and gender differences in as well as main factors contributing to classroom silence.In this research,252 students of 6 classes from grade 7 to grade 9 were invited to complete the questionnaire,and 6 English teachers were interviewed.Additionally,classroom observations were made in the 6 classes.The results show that classroom silence exists in English listening and speaking class of junior high school,and more than half of the students seldom volunteer to orally participate in classroom activities.In addition,there are some differences of classroom silence in terms of grade and gender.It is found that as the students enter into higher grades,their classroom silence becomes even more serious.Compared to boy students,girl students are more interested in English class and are more inclined to have a positive attitude towards oral participation in English listening and speaking class.As for the causes of classroom silence,the scores of boy students are significantly higher than those of girl students in such factors as language competence,teacher,class atmosphere and culture,which indicates that boy students are more likely to be influenced by their language competence and external factors than girl students in terms of their initiative in classroom participation.Besides,students' silence in English listening and speaking class has significant correlation with their personal factors and teacher factors,while the association between classroom silence and such factors as class atmosphere and culture is less significant.Therefore,students' personal factors and teacher factors are the main causes of classroom silence.