A Comparative Study Of Liberal Arts And Science Students’ Silence In College English Classes

A number of studies have showed that college students· silence is a quite commonphenomenon in EFL classes in China. Considering that communicative competence needs tobe emphasized in today·s English teaching, classroom silence often brings a negative effect tostudents· communicative ability, which will also impede the natural teaching process. Inrecent years, plenty of researchers at home and abroad have focused on the factors causingstudents· silence and its passivity in foreign language classes. However, there lackcomparative studies on the liberal arts and science students in colleges.Is there any difference in students· silence time between the liberal arts and sciencemajors in EFL classes? What are the differences of main contributing factors of silencebetween the liberal arts and science majors? And what strategies can be adopted to preventpassive silence occurring in EFL classes as to the different majors? Concentrating on the threequestions, the present thesis reports an empirical study based on the theories ofsociolinguistics, psycholinguistics and pedagogy, resorting to both qualitative and quantitativeresearch methods.At first, classroom observation and interviews on certain teachers and students werecarried out to provide a primary understanding of student factors and teacher factors resultingin silence. Then a25-item questionnaire was distributed and the analysis on the valid190liberal arts· and186science students· responses was conducted in Datong University whichaimed to investigate the most influential factors leading to each group·s silence in EFLclass.The research result suggested that science students kept silent in EFL class morefrequently than the liberal arts did. A further comparative analysis was done from sixdimensions including Chinese traditions and cultures, language proficiency, students·personalities, classroom climate, teachers· teaching mode and course book. It could be concluded that there was significant difference in the first five aspects· influence on the twogroups of students·silence in classroom, while the difference was not significantly affected bythe course book. In light of these findings, some specific implications and suggestions wereproposed for college English teaching. These suggestions included that the obsolete teachingmode should be changed; English teachers must establish a sound rapport with students;diverse class activities should be carried out in class; a harmonious classroom atmosphereneed to be created among students.