An Investigation Into Students' Silence Phenomenon In English Classes In Senior High School

The new curriculum standard requires teachers to use task-based language teaching and heuristic teaching in order to enable senior high school students to participate actively in English classroom activities and improve their English communicative competence.However,students' silence hinder the smooth progress of classroom activities.This study investigates the current situation and causes of English classroom silence among senior high school students to help them overcome classroom silence and create a good classroom atmosphere.This paper attempts to answer the following three research questions:Question 1: What is the current situation of senior high school students' silence in English classes?Question 2: In senior high school,what are the main reasons for students' silence in English class?Question 3: Are there any differences in silence between high proficiency students and low proficiency students in the English classroom of senior high school? If so,what are the differences?The study lasts four months.185 students and 8 teachers from four classes in grade two in Kailuan No.1 Middle School and Fengnan No.1 Middle School in Tangshan City,Hebei Province are selected as the subjects.Classroom observation,interviews and questionnaires are conducted to investigate the classroom silence of senior high school students.A total of 12 classes including grammar,reading and writing are observed.And eight teachers and eight students are interviewed.In the final stage of the survey,185 students are surveyed by questionnaires.Finally,the questionnaire data are collected and analyzed by SPSS.The results indicate that silence really exists in senior high school English classroom and affects the enthusiasm of senior high school students to participate in classroom activities.Classroom atmosphere,teacher-student relationship,students' English proficiency and students' learning habits are the main reasons for classroom silence of senior high school students.There are differences in classroom silence between high and low group students.Because of their low English proficiency,passive learning motivation and bad learning habits,low-score students are more silent than high-score students.Based on the above findings,teachers and students should work together to overcome classroom silence.In terms of of teachers,the skills of questioning,feedback and emotional communication should be adjusted in order to create a good teacher-student relationship.In terms of students,learning habits and learning methods should be changed in order to improve English proficiency.