A Case Study Of Students’ Reticence In English Classes From The Perspective Of Teachers’ Classroom Questioning

This thesis aims at investigating students’ reticence in junior high school English classrooms from the perspective of teachers’classroom questioning. The present study is a case study conducted in a junior high school in Rizhao, Shandong Province which lasts for two weeks. The subjects involved in the study are150students from two classes of Grade nine and their English teacher. Data collected from ten lessons are employed to answer the following two questions:1) Does reticence exist in junior high school English classrooms?2) In what sense may teachers’questioning give rise to students’reticence in the teachers’interactions with their students in English classes?The researcher tape recorded ten lessons from the two classes in order to gain quantitative and qualitative data. Then, a detailed analysis on questioning types, contents, waiting time, purposes and teacher’s feedback was made by the author from teachers’perspective. Besides, data collected from questionnaires and after-class interviews would function as a supplement to answer the research questions. The findings are as follows:In this case, reticence does exist in junior high school English classrooms. Besides, lesson types have an influence on classroom reticence. Compared with leading-in and grammar lessons, reading, listening and exercise lessons are more prone to causing classroom reticence. Moreover, according to the results from questionnaires, nearly half amount of the students is willing to take active parts in classroom activities but not by way of answering questions. Teachers’ monotonous questioning types, ambiguous and less creative questioning contents may bore the students thus losing their interest in answering questions; waiting time less than three seconds will result in students’ reticence; too long waiting time will also cause students’ lack of concentration thus leading to reticence; if teachers’ questions are confined to checking comprehension and feedbacks given by the teacher are uniformly similar and lack of guidance, students’ classroom reticence will be sure to arise.The findings indicate that inappropriate teacher’s classroom questioning will lead to students’ classroom reticence in English lessons.