A Study On The Silence Phenomenon In The English Classroom Of Senior High School

The English class in senior high school is an essential place for students’ English learning.Student’s involvement in class is vital for the promotion of students’ English level.However,through attending the class and teaching practice,the author finds that it is common that English class remains silent in district high school in the practical teaching process.According to the function of classroom silence,Chinese scholars divided it negative silence and positive silence.But this study concentrated on the negative part.For example,most students fail to speak English in class and they also are unwilling to raise their hands and participate in the class discussion and sharing.Generally speaking,pass them over in silence.Whether they know the answers or not,students will insist on keeping silent in class chronically.So it is usual that English teachers always say something alone in class,which is quite embarrassed and has great negative effects on teacher’s teaching passion and students’ learning enthusiasm.Therefore,it is significant to inquire into the reasons of English classroom silence and the corresponding solutions.This research is based on the classroom silence at home and broad and guided by the constructivism and interactive theory.From the poor level class of Grade 1 at Xuanhua High School in Chongqing,the author analyzed the current situation of students’ silence,various reasons and related solutions.It is expected to find out the multiple reasons about the classroom silence of the 2000 s students,and then try to find the solving strategies further from the four aspects about themselves,English teachers,family and school.In this paper,the author mainly studies and analyzes three questions as follows:1.What are the present situation of senior English classroom silence?2.What are the primary reasons of English classroom silence?3.Which strategies can be put into use to deal with the English classroom silence?Before the experiment,the author did the first questionnaire survey and constantclass observation towards the four chosen classes.During the two months experiment periods,the author continued to know and supervise all the people to adopt these strategies.In the end,all the students did the second questionnaire survey.Through it,the author got the result about using the strategies.Through literature research,questionnaire,interviews towards some English teachers and students after class and the record of class observation,the author has finished the research and analysis about the three questions basically.First of all,it is a common phenomenon that most English classes remain silent in the district’s high school,which is related to students,English teachers,school and family directly.Many students think that their classroom silence will be a great obstacle for the improvement of their study performance.Meanwhile,students generally hope to learn English in a more active class.The study shows the reasons of classroom silence have four aspects.For example,the learning motivation of students are negative;Students are afraid of losing face in class;they have crowd psychology and class fear psychology;students’ preview is not full;students have bad learning status in class;the teaching style of English teachers are single and boring in some degrees;teachers lack of proper questioning skills;sometimes the feedback of teacher are ineffective and not meaningful;there is no harmonious relationship between students and English teachers;school think little of the English activities;students’ seats in class are not reasonable for a long period;parents are not supportive enough towards students’ English learning;the family is short of the atmosphere of English learning and so on.Finally,the author puts forward the following corresponding strategies towards the main reasons above.For example,students should correct their study motivation and like learning English from the heart;they also need to abandon some negative psychological hints;be brave to make mistakes and face the laughter from others;dare to show themselves,share their thoughts and enjoy English class.English teachers need to create an active and pleasant atmosphere in class.Teachers also should care more about students’ feelings and minds,develop a favourable and harmonious relationship with students.English teachers ought to learn more to promote their teaching ability.Schools are supposed to support more English activities,encourage students to likelearning English and change some reasonable arrangements about students’ seats in class.Family should give students positive guidance and support towards English study and let students attach importance to English and so on.The author put these strategies into use.After two months,the four class made progress in changing the English classroom silence.And students of the four classes were more active than other classes of the same degree.They behaved better in English class.