A Study On Students’ Silence In English Class Of Higher Vocational Colleges

Higher vocational college students’ silence in EFL classes has become a habit; however, with the development of China’s economy, the demand of students’ communicative competence is becoming more and more urgent; Moreover, classroom communication plays a vital role in the process of English learning, and the higher vocational college students’ silence in EFL classes has become a main obstacle to their English learning.The classroom silence here means learners are not active to speak or communicate with teachers, and keep silence on all questions through nonverbal behaviors. Harmer (2000) states that engagement, study and application are the three basic factors of success in foreign language learning, and the learners’ active participation is a necessary prerequisite for effective learning. Without the active participation in classes, there’s no effective learning.On the basis of the previous researches and the practical situation in teaching, in this thesis the author attempts to solve the following three questions:1. How is the current situation of classroom silence in higher vocational colleges?2. What are the reasons of classroom silence?3. How to improve the students’ participation in their English class, and animate students to learn actively.In order to solve those problems, the author conducted a qualitative and quantitative research in which81non-English major sophomores and85non-English major freshmen from Shandong Medical College were chosen as the subjects. And based on the data collected, the following findings are got:1. The current situation of classroom silence are becoming serious, more than74%of the surveyed higher vocational college students admit they are inactive in their English class.2. The result of the survey showed that those factors such as students’ English proficiency and motivation, teachers’ strategy of teaching, posing questions and feedback, and the size of class all have a strong impact on students’ silence in the English class.3. Based on the result, the author put forward some implications for silent EFL class: on the teachers’ part, teachers should change their traditional teacher-centered teaching method and improve the strategies of questioning and feedback. On the students’part, they should enhance their motivation and self-confidence; On the education department, they should strengthen the reform of student rating system and pay more attention to the communicative competence.The findings of this study, I hope, will not only help teachers find the reasons of classroom silence in their own English class, but also help teachers, students and education department to reduce English class silence in higher vocational colleges.