| Students’ silence is a phenomenon often encountered in college English class.Students’ negative silence directly affects the teaching process, leading the classroomatmosphere to an awkward situation, which will influence the teacher’s curriculumarrangement. So, if the teacher can focus on the phenomenon of classroom silence andexplore the causes of students’ silence, it will be more helpful for them to grasp thestudents’ learning attitude, so as to promote students’ initiative to join in theclassroom turn taking.In this thesis, the author uses the turns between teachers and students in collegeEnglish class as the subjects, using students’ turn-silence in the turn-taking process asthe breakthrough point. The author analyzes the college English classes of140sophomores using the theories of Conversational Analysis, Grice’s cooperativeprinciple and cross-cultural communication theory. The aim of the research is to probethe reasons of students’ classroom turn-silence so as to find the proper strategies indealing with turn-silence. The main instruments used in this study are thequestionnaires for the students, classroom observation and interview. Research showsthat there does exist students’ turn-silence in college English classroom, and thecauses behind this phenomenon come from both teachers and the students, withcultural factors also playing an important role in it. Through the analysis of the causes,the author proposes some strategies and solutions, hoping that they can help teachersin their teaching.The writer gives a profound and detailed emphasis on the existence andappearance of students’ turn-silence in their turn-taking procedure with their teachersin the college English classroom; points out that several theories can be used toexplain turn-silence; and corresponding strategies on how to solve this problem aresuggested through the study. Moreover, the studies of the above problems also provide insight into the studies of turn-silence in other areas. |
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