An Investigation Of The Main Factors Contributing To Private Senior High School Students’ Silence In English Class

English classroom silence refers to the phenomenon that some students don’t participate in classroom activities in the classroom teaching activities. Student’s silence in classroom teaching not only reduces learning effects, but also blocks students’ approach to improve their knowledge level, deprives them of information sharing and communication between teachers and students, students and students, hinders interaction between teachers and students, and impacts knowledge communication and interpersonal communication on cognition of two teaching subjects. With the in-depth development of new curriculum reform, it is necessary to change the previous teaching mode of teachers’"cramming education" and emphasize students’ important roles in classroom teaching. This requires that teachers and students should interact positively. However, a great number of English teachers find that classroom silence is widely spread in senior high schools. The current research aims at helping senior high school teachers find out the in-depth reasons for classroom silence, taking corresponding measures and breaking down silence in accordance with students’ features and classroom teaching practice, so as to improve teaching quality and promote the students’ comprehensive competence of using English.In order to explore the reasons for students’ English classroom silence, four questions have been proposed in the research based on the attribution theory:1) What are the causes of students’ classroom silence from the perspective of students’?2) What are the causes of students’ classroom silence from the perspective of teachers’?3) What are the causes of students’ classroom silence from the perspective of teaching environment?4) What are the causes of students’ classroom silence from the perspective of social cultural factor?In the research,105 students and 10 English teachers from 4 classes in senior grade one and senior grade two of Yuelu private senior high school in Yinchuan, Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region were chosen as research subjects. Open-ended questionnaires were distributed to students and teachers respectively. Answers of students and teachers were collected and analyzed; besides, the answers were classified into different categories from four perspectives:students, teachers, teaching environment and socio-cultural environment, hoping to probe into and analyze students’ classroom silence in this private senior high school.The research findings are as follows:First of all, students’previous learning experience, language ability, confidence and self-concept affect their classroom performance; Secondly, teachers’teaching styles, teaching ability, questioning strategies and feedback modes also impact students’classroom participation to some extent. Thirdly, macroscopic social factors (such as a large population in China and the limited educational resources) and microcosmic classroom atmosphere (such as fixed position of desks and chairs) contribute to students’classroom silence. At last, from the perspective of socio-cultural factors, traditional culture, face consciousness and psychology of conformity also lead to students’silence in Chinese foreign language teaching and learning.The research enlightens Chinese English teaching to some extent:Firstly, teachers should help students to improve language ability and confidence and assist them to acquire pleasant English learning experience; Secondly, teachers should modify their teaching styles, improve their teaching ability, adopt suitable question strategies, and give positive feedback to students; Thirdly, tables and chairs should be arranged to activate harmonious classroom atmosphere and reinforce interaction between teachers and students. Finally, teachers should consciously and subconsciously change students’traditional cultural concept and stress on their initiative in classroom activities.The research has two limitations:On the one hand, the research subjects just come from a private senior high school in Yinchuan, so the results may not explain the causes of classroom silence in all the senior high schools in China, both public and private, both advanced and backward. On the other hand, the reasons for students’classroom silence are extremely complicated and mutually influenced, so some in-depth reasons haven’t been discussed until now. The future researches should pay more attention to diversification of sample types and explore in-depth reasons for classroom silence in Chinese English teaching.