A Study Of Students’ Silence In English Classes In Rural Senior High Schools And Its Countermeasures

English, as a foreign language, is a compulsory course in senior high schools in our country. Due to the reform and opening-up policy, English has become the second language for some learners especially in most urban areas nowadays. However, in rural senior high schools, English is still the most difficult course for students to learn and for teachers to teach, because students’ silence phenomenon is very common in English classes. Very often, most students are inactive to take part in class interactions with their teachers and peers, and keep silent on all questions with nonverbal behaviors throughout classes. Their silence in class has become a main barrier to their English learning, since English class is the best or even the only place for rural students to learn and practice English. Therefore, this study focuses on researching students’ silence in rural senior high school English classes, which is of great significance.This study attempts to investigate the following three research questions: 1)What is the current situation of students’ silence in English classes in rural senior high schools? 2) What are the causes of students’ classroom silence? 3) What strategies should be taken to create a relaxing class atmosphere and inspire students to learn English actively? In order to answer these three questions, this study adopted the method of combining qualitative and quantitative research to conduct the study in Jinning No.2 Senior High School, which is the only senior high school in that small town. In this study, classroom observations and questionnaires were the main research instruments. The samples were 2 English teachers and 100 students in Grade Two, from whom all of the first hand data were provided to support this study.According to the findings of this study, a few constructive conclusions are as follows: 1) The current situation of students’ silence in English classes in rural senior high school was serious, nearly 80% of the subjects admitted that they were inactive and often kept silence in English classes. 2) The results of survey showed that factors, both on students and teachers, had a strong passive impact on students’ silence in English classes, such as students’ low learning motivation and high anxiety as well as teacher-centered classroom and humdrum teaching process. 3) Teaching strategies to overcome this problem include stimulating students’ learning motivations, minimizing their English learning anxiety, improving teachers’ instructional methods, questioning and feedback strategies.Based on the results, some implications for silent English classes in rural senior high schools were put forward:1) Teachers shouldn’t stint their praise and encouragement to students; instead, they should express higher expectation to them so that students’ motivation and self-confidence would be enhanced as well as their English learning anxiety would be minimized; 2) Teachers should alter their traditional teacher-centered teaching method and provide students more opportunities to talk in class; 3) It would be desirable if teachers improve the strategies of questioning by asking proper questions according to students’ level and enlarging the waiting time to 3-5 seconds after posing questions; 4) Offering positive and instant feedback is another effective measure to break students’ silence in English classes as well.