A Study On Present Situation And Teaching Strategies For Students' Silence In Junior Middle School English Classes

Students' silence is a phenomenon often encountered in junior high English class.This keeps students from involving in the classroom interaction and strongly influences the normal communication between teacher and students even among students themselves.Students' classroom silence not only affects on achieving teaching aims of teachers,but also it is not good for the cultivation of students' language abilities.Therefore,it is necessary to explore reasons that cause this phenomenon,and dig out the methods to overcome it,and this can achieve effective classroom interaction.In recent years,scholars at home and abroad have been studying classroom silence from both theoretical and practical aspects.But there is very little empirical research in junior middle school English classrooms.Studies on rural students' silence are even scarcer.Based on Longs Interaction Hypothesis and Swain' Output Hypothesis,this thesis first describes and introduces not only the background of questioning but also the purpose and significance of it,then the author comes up with the following three research questions.1)What is the current situation of classroom silence in junior middle school?2)What are the reasons of classroom silence?3)What are the possible solutions to students' silence?The subjects participating in the study were three EFL teachers in Junior Two and their 88 students in paralleled classes in Yuwan Middle school,Jingning,Pingliang,Gansu.By means of classroom observation,interview,and questionnaire,a deeply investigation is done.Hence,the author employs a mixed methodology of both qualitative and quantitative to do the research.From the results of the investigation,it shows that(1)students' silence phenomenon seriously exists in English class in junior middle school.(2)The contributing elements should attribute to teacher,student and teaching environment.In students' part,the major causes leading to English class silence are lack of positive English learning motivation,interest and confidence,poor English proficiency and anxiety.While in teacher's part,the traditional teaching methods,inadequate wait-time,improper feedback and unfair distribute questions are the main causes.And in the part of teaching environment,unharmonious relationship between teachers and students,and depressed classroom atmosphere are the primary causes.To solve the above problems,the thesis proposed the corresponding suggestions from three aspects.First,students should establish the concept of autonomous learning,strengthen self-confidence,and overcome anxiety.Second,teachers ought to change their teaching ideas,improve teaching methods and ways of posing questions.Meanwhile,they should have a patient to wait students to give an answer and give them a positive and proper feedback.Third,effective communication between teachers and students should be further strengthened,so as to set up a good relationship and build an active classroom atmosphere.All in all,the thesis investigates the current situation and the causes of silence phenomenon in English class for junior middle school students and then comes up with suggestions accordingly.However,there are also some limitations in the present research,such as region and research subjects,etc.and the suggestions for future research are indicated in the thesis.