Research On Classroom Silence Phenomenon Of Middle School Students

Silence and words consists of human’s communication, it can express both the signifierand signified meaning. But as the non-vocal communication form, its situational andindistinct essence determines its double intension and bipolar functions. Step from the normalcommunication situation to the concrete class atmosphere, the class silence has such kind ofproperty too. All that needs teachers and students to make a deep understanding anddistinction on silence. However, due to some restrictions, teachers, as well as students, haveno comprehensive knowledge toward the class silence, some teachers may fall into theerroneous zone, and they can develop a partial attitude and adopt some lopsided behaviorstoward students’ silence, That will not only hold back the going on of teaching activities, butalso has negative effects to the overall development of students. From the data collected,limited silence studies have been carried out, Moreover, most studies limit the silenceconception into the passive section and have no overall understanding on it. Based on that, thewriter thinks this study could provide great theoretical and practical significance.This study chooses five middle schools in urban and suburban area as its research targetsand it employs questionnaires as well as observations to explore teachers’ and students’knowledge, attitude and behaviors towards class silence. By doing that, on the one hand, itsorts out the classifications of the class silence in English classroom and on the other hand, itproves the existence of English class silence and find out the diversification and superficialproperty of teachers’ and students’ attitude. It also proposes some questions about silencephenomenon, such as the silent generate mechanism, how to think about class silence,whether silence is positive or negative, which kind of silence does an effective class need andso on. In order to solve these questions, this study makes an analysis of relevant theories,includes cooperation principle and relative theory, which seeks to find out the rational andinadequate interpretation on silence, after that, this study continues to conclude and analyzesthe effective features of silence from the effective teaching theory. In respond to these causes,the study proposes effective suggestions which are also the foothold of this study. Thesesuggestions include: From the perspective of individual’s overall life development, the correctinterpretation of class silence is needed.; Based on the students’ cognitive characters and their personalities, teachers should differentiate students’ classroom silence properly; Teachersshould create a harmonious educational and ecological atmosphere; It is also very importantto design the suitable inquiry dialogue during the teaching process. Finally, the conclusionpart sums up the major finding of the present research, present limitations as well assuggestions for future research.