A Study Of The Effects Of Teacher-Student Interactive Strategies On English Classroom Silence In Rural Junior Middle School

The teacher-student interaction is of great significance to the English teaching and learning.Good interactive strategies can stimulate students' interest and motivate them to take part in class activities on their own initiative.Only when teachers guide students to actively participate in the interaction can English teaching achieve good effects.However,in rural junior middle school in China,the hardware facilities are not developed enough.The teaching resources are not so abundant.Students' English learning starts late,so the foundation of most of the students is relatively weak.As a result,in English classes teachers are the main protagonists while students have become the supporting role of passive acceptance.There is a lack of effective communication and interaction between teachers and students.The phenomenon of the students' negative silence is especially serious.This problem has seriously hindered the improvement of English learning quality of rural junior middle school students.Therefore,it is necessary to study the effects of teacher-student interactive strategies on English classroom negative silence in rural junior middle school,and put forward some effective interactive strategies to reduce negative silence.Based on the social interaction theory,output hypothesis theory and knowledge power theory,this study investigated the teachers' interactive strategies and their effects on the students' negative silence in the English classroom of a rural junior middle school.Questions discussed in this study are listed as follows:(1)What are the factors in the interactive strategies leading to the negative silence in the English classroom of the rural junior middle school?(2)What are the interactive strategies to effectively reduce the students' negative silence in the English classroom of the rural junior middle school?(3)What are the changes of the negative silence in the English classroom of the rural junior middle school after the improvement of the interactive strategies?Focusing on the above questions,this study chose all the students from the six classes of Grade 8 and their three English teachers as the research participants and conducted the research through questionnaires,interviews and class observations.This study included two stages.At the first stage,this study took questionnaire survey and interviews to find out the factors in the interactive strategies leading to the negative silence from five aspects:interactive subjects,interactive environment,interactive forms,interactive breadth and interactive depth.At the second stage,the teachers improved their interactive strategies in the English classroom and the author explored the effects of teachers' improved interactive strategies on the students'negative silence in the English classroom by questionnaires and class observations.The major findings yielded from this study are summarized as follows.First of all,there were some factors in the interactive strategies which lead to the students' negative silence in the English classroom.For example,teachers controlled the classroom strictly and give the students few rights;teachers did not pay enough attention to students' thoughts and feelings;the interactive forms were not diversified enough;teachers mainly interacted with top students;the questions asked by the teachers in the interaction were too simple to stimulate students' interest in interaction,and the depth of interaction was not enough.The above factors were unfavorable to the teacher-student interaction.Secondly,some effective interactive strategies such as setting up a good teacher-student relationship,diversifying the interactive forms and paying attention to more students could improve the interaction effects and then reduce the students' negative silence.Thirdly,after the improvement of the interactive strategies both the interaction effects and the classroom silence changed a lot.The teacher-student relationship became much more harmonious.Teachers tried their best to create the appropriate interactive environment in order to inspire the students' thinking.The students'performance was responded more quickly.More interactive forms were applied in the interactive processes,such as playing games.The teachers interacted with most of the students in classes instead of only focusing on the top students.The interactive depth was much more appropriate.The improved strategies obviously reduced the students' negative silence.On the basis of investigation and research,this study put forward the following interactive strategies for the teachers to reduce the negative silence in English classroom of the rural junior middle schools.First of all,equal and harmonious teacher-student relationship should be established.Secondly,an appropriate interactive environment should be created.Thirdly,the interactive forms should be diversified.Fourthly,teachers should try their best to expand the interactive breadth.If teachers pay close attention to students' thoughts,most students are eager to interact with teachers.Finally,the interaction should have a certain depth.The tasks with moderate difficulty are easier to arouse students' interest.