A Study On Students' Silence In The Efl Lassroom-from The Constructivist Perspective

Classroom interaction refers to one kind of students' activities in class betweenteacher and students and among students, such as class discussion, teachers'questioning, and students' answers and so on. According to New College EnglishCurriculum Requirements, students-centered teaching style and students' classinteraction are emphasized. However, in most foreign language classes students'silence is very common. Such phenomenon has attracted more and more researchers tostudy. Previous study abroad about students' silence is based on the multiculturalbackground, which is different from the situation in our country. However, most ofstudies in our country are prone to review relative theories. Few of researchers applytheories to real class situations and probe the special causes. So this study aims atfinding out the special reasons of students' silence in EFL classroom.Based on constructivist theory, the researcher analyzes student, teacher, task andcontext four factors that correlate with students' interaction in class. The subjectscontain196non-English major freshmen of Chongqing Normal University and6English teachers. By such quantitative research as questionnaire, the researcher tries tofind out how those factors correlate with students' silence in EFL class. By suchqualitative research as class observation, the researcher tries to record the phenomenonof students' silence in class; by interview, the researcher tries to find out the actualsituation when students keep silence in EFL class. Combining quantitative andqualitative research, the author finds out the special reasons of students' silence in EFLclass.Results of the survey show that teacher factors, such as way of questioning,wait-time and attitude; student factors, such as motivation, attitude, self-esteem andanxiety and personality; task factor; context factors, such as face theory, politenessstrategy and class atmosphere, class structure and class size affect students'participation in classroom interaction. All of these influencing factors interact with each other and they do not function separately.With the results of the study, the researcher gives some detailed suggestions topromote classroom interaction and improve English teaching efficiency. Firstly, bothteachers and students should have a new and clear concept towards silence. Silence haspositive and negative silence. Teachers should encourage students to think positivelywhen questioning while students should make good use of positive silence to responseteachers or peers and reach the interactive effect. And then teachers should make somechange on some aspects such as way of questioning, wait-time, and attitude. Improvingarts of designing and asking questions is useful to activate students to participate inclass. Students will have better performance with enough wait-time. So prolonging thewait-time is also a way to improve students' performance in class. Teachers shouldoffer fair opportunity for each student and avoid unintentional partial attitude. Studentsas the learning part also should try to change this situation. Students should build upcorrect motivation and attitude to improve their learning.The ice of silence can be dissolved only when teachers and students have a clearimpression of silence and cooperate with each other. The friendly and harmoniousatmosphere created by teachers and students can promote students to participate inclass and improve their language level.