A Study Of Silence From The Perspective Of Teacher-Student Interaction ——Take Science Classes In The Sixth Grade For Example

Silence is the same as talking.Both are ways of communication widely found in daily life.However,classroom silence is often seen as a "failure" of teaching or a "rupture" of communication,especially within the context of educational reforms such as dialogic teaching.How does silence in the classroom happen? How does it affect the classroom? By reviewing relevant literature,I found that silence can be used as a means of participation.Teachers can teach better and students can be involved into the classroom through silence.When classroom silence serves as the way of participation,it varies in different situations.Therefore,this study aims to explore how the classroom silence is constructed and how it affects classroom activities.In this paper,I analyzed 480 minutes of classes videos of the 6th-grade science class,which were collected in a school in Shanghai.Based on the definition of silence in this study,65 video clips were selected to be transcribed.The transcripts were then analyzed by using the method of conversation analysis.In particular,this study addressed two research questions.First,as a form of participation,in what contexts do classroom silence occur? After repeatedly watching classroom videos,I excluded the silence generated by teachers and students’ activities（such as note-taking,write on the blackboard,etc.）.Then I found that silence occurred the most in the question-and-answer（Q＆A）situation and the whole-class discussion,including the situations in which the teacher asked questions,organized class discussion,and so on.In different situations,classroom silence plays different roles.Second,in different situations,how do teachers and students participate in the class through silence? From the perspective of teacher-student interaction,this study found that the understandings of silence must be rooted in the contexts in which silence occurred.The silence in the Q＆A situations is mostly centered on the questions and answers,and the teacher and students cooperated to complete the Q＆A sequences.The silence in class activities reflects the cooperation and tension between the teacher and students.On the other hand,the interaction between the teacher and students constructs silence.Finally,the study affirmed the participatory role of silence in the classroom.Based on these findings,this study suggests that teachers and researchers must learn to "listen" to silence,and understand silence comprehensively and objectively so as to promote teaching and learning in the classroom.