An Investigation On First-year Non-english Major Students, Reticence In English Classroom

Involvement and participation are essential for language acquisition, and themore utterances the learners offer, the better their spoken language is. However,on the basis of review of the previous studies, it is found that Chinese students’reluctance to participate in English classrooms has become a commonphenomenon in universities. It has also found that students’ reticence in classroomhas long been a challenge for both teachers and students. With the growingimportance of English and the instant development of globalization, there is aneed for teachers and students to have an overall understanding of reticence inEFL classrooms.This study is undertaken to investigate college students’ reticence in Englishclassroom. The subject pool of the study is limited to non-English EFL majors atNanchang University. They are142freshmen (57males and85females) fromdifferent majors,43majoring in civil engineering,39majoring in Chineselanguage and literature,33majoring in accounting,27majoring in marketing. Thestudents are divided into three different proficiency groups on the basis of theirtest score of the college entry examination. Using interviews, observations andsurvey as a technique of collecting data, the present study probes the followingresearch questions:(1) the extent to which college students experience reticencein English classrooms;(2) the factors contributing to college students’reticence in English classroom;(3) the differences in reticence between highproficiency students and low proficiency students. Descriptive analysis andindependent samples t-test were used to analyze the data obtained from thequestionnaire. Eight students were invited to take part in interviews. The datataken from interviews as well as from classroom observations were documentedand summarized.The study revealed a number of findings：(1) classroom reticence is a ratherserious problem in English class. The majority of the participants keep reticent inEnglish class and only a few volunteer to respond to their teachers or activelyengaged in group discussions;(2) Various variables work together to result instudent reticence in EFL classrooms, including students’ affective factors (learning motivation, self-confidence, FL anxiety, risk taking ability, etc.),students’ English proficiency, the impact of Chinese culture and teachers’ andpeers’ influence. The results indicate that more research needs to be done to helpstudents become more active and proficient EFL learners;(3) there are significantdifferences in classroom reticence between students at different proficiency levels.Advanced-level students tend to be more active than their lower-levelcounterparts.Based on the findings above, pedagogical implications are offered forEnglish teaching and learning. Firstly, teachers should help students realize theirreticence in English class. Teachers should use open discussion to let studentsrecognize their reticence. Secondly, cooperative learning model can be adopted inEnglish classroom. Small group working is a good way to encourage moreparticipation. Thirdly, it is urgent to improve students’ English proficiency.Teachers should change their role in English teaching and allow students to havemore opportunity to practice their English in class. Finally, teachers should adoptcorresponding strategies to reduce students’ anxiety during English class. Theyshould change their ways of error correction and pay attention to students’individual needs.