A Study Of Silence Phenomenon And Their Causes In The English Class Of Senior High School

Silence phenomenon in classrooms is that students keep silent or do not communicatewith each other or teachers when teachers ask them questions or initiate activities that needstudents to react to or participate in during the teaching process. That is a kind of non-verbalbehavior. Silence phenomenon in classroom can be classified into two different kinds:positive and negative classroom silence. The former is conductive to learning, while the latteris harmful to the acquisition of both knowledge and ability.In the present study, classroom observation, questionnaires, interviews and other surveymethods were used to make a research on the English class silence phenomenon in seniorhigh school. The results show that:1）silence phenomenon in senior high school class doesexist;2）the main reasons of this phenomenon come from three aspects: external environment,students’ factors and teachers’ factors.（1）From the analysis we can see that the external environmental factors are: theinfluence of the traditional Chinese culture, the influences of the examination-orientededucational teaching philosophy and the dull atmosphere of the English class.（2）The students’ factors include learning motivation, roles in class, language skills,state of mind, self-confidence, and classroom anxiety. The survey shows that: first, thepercentage of students who hold instrumental motivation is as high as83.84%; second,58.59%of the students are in favor of playing the roles of passive listeners and recipients;third,66.67%of the students who lack of language abilities do not want to answer questionsor show their opinions in class. And the proportion of students who think that the teachers’discourses are difficult to understand because of so many new words and fast speed accountsfor18.18%and20.20%, while those who can not understand in class due to lack ofbackground knowledge reaches48.48%; fourth,39.39%of the total number of the studentsshows the performance of herd mentality; fifth, the number of students who has no habit ofspeaking in class or lacks of confidence or fears from giving wrong answers respectivelyaccount for35.35%and33.33%; sixth, the number of students who feel very anxious and alittle anxious is up to50.51%. The above factors are the most important causes of classroomsilence.（3）The teachers’ factors include the teachers’ teaching methods, classroom feedback and traditional teaching philosophy, as well as examination-oriented educational concepts. Itcan be seen from the following aspects. First, the teachers talk significantly more thanstudents, which show that they hold a dominant position. Also the teachers attach moreimportance to impart knowledge while make light of listening and speaking and ability-training in their teaching and ignore the importance of culture-teaching in second languageacquisition. Second, teachers’ feedback is mostly monotonous or lack of incentives, forexample,80.81%of the students believe that teachers’ evaluations are always those words:good or very good. The number of students who think that the most common feedback of theteachers on error responses is to ask other students to reply instead accounts for62.63%, andthe proportion of students who are allowed to sit down after giving wrong answers or becriticized is respectively up to5.05%and6.06%. In addition, the relationship between theteachers and the students as well as teachers’ own images are also important factors.According to the results of the survey, this thesis puts the following suggestions.First, teachers should create an equal, pleasant, and extensive classroom teachingatmosphere and optimize the learning environment to enable the students to learn in a pleasantlearning environment and to enhance the effectiveness of learning. Second, strengthen theteaching of cultures to increase the cultural input of the English class in high school and helpthe students to expand their knowledge. Third, enrich instructional design, stimulate students’interests in learning English and their efforts to mobilize the enthusiasm of studentparticipation in classroom. Fourth, change the teaching methods appropriately. Make sure thatthe students are the core of the class. Concern more about the students’ individual differencesin abilities and teach them according to their individual differences. Fifth, guide the studentsto establish a right concept of and right attitude towards learning. Sixth, guide the students toovercome the psychological barriers, foster their confidence, and develop a sense of identityamong the students. Seventh, encourage the students more and use more positive evaluationof them and diversify classroom feedback. Last but not least, enhance the qualities of theteachers and optimize the relationship between the teachers and the students.