A Study On Silence Of Non-English Major Students In College English Reading Classrooms

Language acquisition is a two-way process; both input and output are indispensable. Although abundant language input is the basis of language output, input without output impairs language acquisition. In China, English class is the main place for students to learn English. Students’ participation in class is a manifestation of active language output as well as a premise of effective teaching. The phenomenon that students remain silent and avoid language output not only impedes the smooth advance of classroom instruction, but also hinders the cultivation of students’ comprehensive English ability. Hence, more and more scholars abroad and at home have paid increasing attention to the study of classroom silence. As the nature of language learning is an active and complicated cognitive process, it is of great importance to carry out researches on students’ classroom silence so as to improve the teaching and learning efficiency in college English reading classrooms.Taking the output hypothesis and the interaction hypothesis as the theoretical bases,this research adopts quantitative and qualitative methods to make a study of classroom silence in college English reading classrooms involving 31 teachers and more than 500 hundred college students from 9 universities. This research aims to make an analysis of the current situation of silence in college English reading classrooms, explore the influencing factors that cause students’ silence, as well as examine the differences between different English proficiency level students in terms of their silence degree.SPSS 19.0 is adopted to do factor analysis, correlation test as well as independent samples t test. Based on macro survey of questionnaires and interviews, this research carries out micro observation of individuals and introduces think-aloud to record and reflect students’ psychological processes while being silent in an effort to give insights into students’ silence in college English reading classrooms.Major findings of this research show that:(1) It is a prevailing occurrence that a majority of Chinese students keep silent in college English reading classrooms and students’ silence degree is rather high.(2) There are five main factors causing the classroom silence: students’ negative affective factors(lower language proficiency, lack of self-confidence, language anxiety, face-saving and introverted personality), students’ perception of interaction in class(improper perception of classroom learning and passivelearning habit), students’ instrumental learning motivation, teacher-related factors(teaching mode, questioning techniques, teacher-student relationship, teachers’ expectation, classroom atmosphere, as well as the examination and evaluation system)and environmental influences(prevailing psychology of conformity and type of course).(3) Results also indicate that there are significant differences between high proficiency level students and low proficiency level students in the silence degree and causes of silence. Due to the inadequacy in English capacity, low proficiency level students who are more easily influenced by the affective factors and teacher-related factors seem to be more silent in class; while the silence of high proficiency level students are usually caused by some environmental influences. According to the research results, the researcher provides some pedagogical suggestions for students and teachers respectively to help reduce students’ silence in college English reading classrooms.