-
Meanwhile, this teaching mode
can not cause interest to students.
However,
most
researches
reveal
that
Chinese
students
tend
to
be
reluctant and silent in
EFL (English as a Foreign Language) classroom.
But
w
ith
enormous
changes
in
the
educational
environment
the
updating
of
the
instructional
theories,
the
focus
of
second
language
acquisition (SLA)
has shift from teacher-centered to students-
centered.
How to reduce
silence in ESLEFLclassroom to increase students'
target
language
use
naturally
becomes
the
pedagogicalissue
that
interests
not
only language experts
but also teachers. In the past decades,
anincreasing
number
of
studies
in
ESL/EFL
have
been
conducted
to
explore
the
reasons forstudents' silence.
As
Cheng
Xiaotang
(2000)
said,
“
In
recent
ESL/EFL
literature,
Asian
(especially East Asian) learners of
English as a foreign/second language
have been arguably reported as reticent
and passive learners. The most
common
allegations
are
that
students
are
reluctant
to
participate
in
classroom discourse; they are unwilling
to give response; they do not ask
questions;
and
they
are
passive
and
over-dependent
on
the
teachers.
”
Obviously, silence is a common
phenomenon in Chinese EFL classroom.
Some study research have put that there
are broad and narrow definitions of
silence
in
the
category
of
communicative
linguistics.
In
the
broad
sense,
silence
includes
all
kinds
of
nonverbal
communicative
forms;
while
in
the
narrow sense, silence is
a branch of the gap of paralanguage. In other
words,
The maker of silence cannot
easily and clearly know about what information
can
it
bring
to
others.
And
how
the
silence
receiver
look
like
this
silence
phenomenon
is
also
uncertain.
Silence,
sometimes
can
be
intentional
and
related, or sometimes can be occasional
and unrelated. Moreover, the subject
of
silence exists a lot of individual differences.
Many
foreign
and
domestic
educational
researchers
believe
that
the
traditional Chinese culture has a great
influence on students
’
learning in the
EFL
classroom.
The
traditional
Confucian
ideas
and
collectivism
almost
have
been
deeply
rooted
in
everybody
’
s
heart.
Influenced
by
these
conventional ideas, Chinese students
often regard teachers as the authority,
the
symbol
of
absolute
power
of
the
whole
classroom,
so
they
accept
knowledge passively without challenging
teacher
’
s instructions.
In
the
early
age
of
silence
study,
most
researchers
focus
on
its
negative
effects or relate
it to ethic religion study. In the field of
linguistics, silence is
often neglected
by scholars except for its function as a boundary-
marking in
language.
As Wardhangh(1986) points out, in
psychological view, silence could imply
what people are thinking about, what
people are feeling right now or their
psychological condition: respect,
comfort, support, deep thought, hesitation
or even rejection.
Just
as
Saville-
Troike
(1985)
pointed
out,
silence
is
an
inherently
ambiguous
symbol
in
nature
relying
on
the
specific
contexts
for
interpretation
in
order
to
avoid
misinterpretation
and
misevaluation,
so
the
same
is
true
for
student's
silence
in
the
classroom
with
multiple
meanings which can indicate resistance,
boredom, passive noncompliance
for
its
negative
side
and
thoughtfulness,
strategic
timing,
respect
for
teacher's authority for its positive
side. This thus highlights the need for
teachers to handle carefully and
sensitively student's silence
The
positive
silence
in
EFL
classroom
is
the
common
and
necessary
element
of
students
’
thinking,
and
it
is
also
the
essential
form
that
presents
the
accepting,
digesting
and
applying
of
teacher
’
s
teaching
contents. For
instance, it can be the silence that students are
in deep and
positive
thinking
after
teacher
’
s
questions
or
students
concentrate
on
teacher
’
s
instructions or other
students
’
answers, etc. All
in all,
in most
cases,
students
’
positive
classroom
silence
contributes
to
acquire
and
absorb knowledge. It can help students
think more deeply, and then get
their
own unique analysis.