Research On The Phenomenon Of Vocational Students’ English Classroom Silence

Classroom silence, a blank period in speech or interaction, can have a lot of meaning. It may mean the learner is uninterested, indifferent, boring about the topic, or means the learner needs more time to think about what to say and how to put what in his mind into understandable words.Classroom silence is often seen as a passive phenomenon. It is well known that "a major goal of all English language teaching should be to enable learners to use English effectively and as far as accurately in communication"(Paul and Eric,2002). Interaction and communication are of great importance in English learning. But the phenomenon of silence frequently appears in vocational students’English class which is not conducive to the development of students’English communication competence. It is of great necessity to solve this problem. This research aims at analyzing the causes of classroom silence, and then testifies whether these reasons are the factors that lead to vocational students’ silence. In this research, the research questions are as follows:1. What’s the frequency of vocational students’ silence in EFL classroom?2. What are the factors that lead to students’ classroom silence?This research was carried out in Hubei Vocational College of Bio-technology. Researches methods such as observation, questionnaire and interview are designed to explore the frequency and the reasons of vocational students’silence in English classes. Through investigation, the reasons of vocational students’classroom silence can be generalized in both aspects:teacher’s aspect and students’aspect. As is revealed in investigation, in students’aspect, English classroom silence is caused by students’ passive learning habit, their low English proficiency, and affective factors such as low self-confidence, personality and cultural influence; in the teacher’s aspect, the reasons are traditional teaching method which can not arouse students’interest to learn, inappropriate questioning skills and short wait-time as well as the classroom atmosphere the teacher creates. Listed one by one, but in fact all these factors are overlapped and intertwined to lead to vocational students’classroom silence.In order to reduce vocational students’silence in English class, suggestions are put forward from both students’and teacher’s aspects respectively. The students can build up their confidence and reduce their learning anxiety through goal-setting and achieving; and the students’active cooperation with the teacher and other students can also facilitate classroom interaction. For the teacher, he/she can draw students’attention through changing teaching method, for example, to use Task-based Instruction to design different tasks for the students to complete; giving encouragement and positive feedback to the students; creating an active classroom environment where students can interact freely and everyone is willing to share their views.