Acknowledgments

"Silence", actually, is familiar to us, as we may come across it in our daily communications now and then.

2.4 Socio-cultural and the Current Educational Environment Factors

2.4.1 Face Consciousness

The matter of face appears to be more particularly in China. Students' face consciousness becomes stronger with age.There are two kinds of face perceptions: positive face and negative face. In class, students not only make themselvesnot lose face, but also help others to avoid losing face. Either actively and enthusiastically answering questions in class or finishing homework after class is positive face, because through these performances students can get teacher's praise and affirmation. When students are aware of their answers or discussions, which may lead to other classmates or teachers losing face, but they don't know how to answers or they are suspicious about their English level, they tend to use silence to save face.Sometimes although students have thought teacher's questions, they still have some hesitation to show their answer in class for fear of making mistakes, so they want to listen to others at first. Or if their answer does not get the teacher's affirmation they will feel shameful. When students are not satisfied with their answer they will keep silent to ensure not lose face. So strong face consciousness makes students feel sorry to go against others that they would rather choose to be silent in the classroom.

2.4.2 Traditional Views Impact

By the impact of traditional views, students often choose to be silent in the college English classroom. First, we have many sayings, like "silent is gold", "He that talks much errors much"etc., and these traditional ideologies are rooted in Chinese college students' minds. Second, Chinese people focus on getting well with others. They believe that respecting people means not going against others. Third, Chinese culture emphasizes obedience. So they hold that students should obey their parents at home and obey their teachers in the school. Based on the above impacts, students keep silent in college EFL classroom. Fourth, 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.

2.4.3 The Class Atmosphere

Foreign language learners need to get enough opportunities to output and practice their target language. Language classroom provides a very good channel for students to practice and exchange information with each other. Therefore, the classroom interaction plays a very significant role in improving students' English level. But many students are not satisfied with the classroom atmosphere. College students complain that the atmosphere of their classroom environment is lack of cooperation, so dull and nervous, they cannot enjoy the fun of learning and classroom interactions. Some students assume that the contents of classroom teaching have nothing to do with their examinations, so they ignore the course but emphasize examinations, let alone the interactions in classroom. Some students think the university classroom is different from the middle and primary school classrooms, where they need not raise hand to speak, need not discuss to agree upon, just attend the class their learning task will be finished. Under the influence of this incorrect learning environment and psychological environment, those originally intended to participate in class actively had to escape to be showing off, so with anxiety, they would rather quietly follow the traditional Chinese virtue-being modest and silent. Thus, students cannot get rid of the teacher-centered classroom.

As mentioned above, the international communication between teachers and students is related to the forming of the best learning atmosphere. Classroom atmosphere is suggested to students through teacher's posture, the expressions or words. And then it makes students produce empathy which results in a chain of infection and finally forms a certain atmosphere. Thus the teacher should focus on creating good classroom atmosphere to improve the classroom teaching.

Normally, according to the different subjects,silence in classroom can be broken up into two: one is teacher's silence, and the other is students? silence. But in this thesis we are going to discuss the later one, students' classroom silence.

Most of us believe that silence almost not has any meaning and even means nothing at all. But a number of researchers have a high spirit to study it, and they have found that many people misunderstand it.

which the behavior of students' absent-minded, ,, but Some researchers studied on this have revealed diverse classifications of silence.

With different personalities, attitudes or emotions, students' silence functions differently. Some students are shy or introverted, they are not in the habit of communicating in public, so they choose to be silent at last. And some students' classroom behaviors depend on their attitudes to what the teacher said or instructed. Students may show their opinions and answers in silence when they like teacher's idea without any disagreement but have nothing to say; or they may not like what teacher said and show strong disagreement; or they may show their support, respect and obedience to the teacher. When students get a sad, angry or embarrassed emotion, they may not want to say anything, they need some time to calm down. Or even maybe the questions or communicative activities are too difficult for students, so they cannot speak out too quickly, they need some time to think more. So there are different situations when students being silent in classroom, during which their silence has various functions.

Classroom silence may include teachers' silence and students' silence. And there are some obvious differences between their functions. At first, in classroom teaching, teachers' silence has a great influence on students' classroom behaviors. One main function of teachers' silence is regulating function. This function can reflect on coping with emotions, implying punishment, removing distractions, keeping orders and changing topics. On the other hand, the revelation function of teachers' silence is that teacher can create a specific situation to inspire students' thinking and to deepen their impressions on English learning. But students' silence in EFL classroom functions differently.

[20] Tsui, A.B.M. (1996). Reticence and anxiety in second language learning. In K. M. Bailey, and D. Nunan (Eds.). V oices from the Language Classroom. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

There cannot be a clap with only one hand.

At this level of my research, i decide to select the following issues as my research objectives and the main tasks: But they choose to be reluctant and silentbecause of the traditional teacher-centered lecture and rote memorization. They are not the appropriate modes of English teaching.In fact, the factors attribute to students' silence in EFL classroom are closely related, either from the respect of student or from the respect of teacher. First of all, from the respect of students, there are some main causes. A large amount of students choose to be silent for their lack of confidence and the lower of self-efficacy. In the process of English learning, learners are affected by their learning motivations to a large extent. Researches show t hat students? personalities and attitudes are important to their language learning.In many situations, students remain to be silent in classroom because of their lack of language ability which make them feel unconfident.Students with foreign language anxiety are often not able to focus their attention on the study and the interactions with the teacher or other classmates. The anxiety plays a negative role in improving students' English level. This hinders students' language learning directly or indirectly.

From the respect of teachers, there are also some main reasons, such as he state of the teacher-student relationship, the traditional teaching methods, teacher's questioning,and teacher's feedback or evaluation. Besides, there are also some socio-cultural factors which deeply impact students' participation in EFL classroom. In order to break students?silence in EFL classroom, we must take some practical methods, for instance, improving students' motivation and their self-confidence, improving students' learning strategies, strengthening students?language application and enhancing their self-efficacy. Teachers themselves should also do more efforts to change teacher's traditional teaching style and method, to make the class atmosphere active and harmony, to maintain good relationship between teachers and students and to increase teacher's questioning skills and feedback strategies.

[9] 夏纪梅.现代外语课程设计理论与实践[M].上海:上海外语教育出版社，2003.106-107.

Silence is widely considered to be the absence of speech in a negative way by many researchers.

The Analysis on the Causes of and the Solutions to College Students’Silence in English Classroom

4.3.4 Remove the barriers of traditional culture

And with enormous changes in the educational environment the updating of the instructional theories, the focus of English learning has shift from teacher-centered to students-centered. Therefore, it is necessary to explore the factors of students? silence in college EFL classroom and put forward the corresponding solutions.

1.2 Purpose of the Research

Chapter 1: 1.1 Research Background

1.1 Research Background

1.2 Purpose of the Research

1.3 Significance of the Research

1.5 Limitations of Previous Studies ......................................................................

3.3 Solutions on the Part of Educational Environment

3.3.1

3.3.2 Optimize the teaching condition and stimulate students?interest s in learning

3.3.3 Change the teach-thinking and optimize the class teaching organization

This thesisfocuses on a research on the negative aspect of students' silence in college EFL class.Negative silence mainly refers to students' lot of time absence ofinteraction in classand their passive attitude towards their performance. This kind of silence will lead toa dull classroom

atmosphere and hinder college students from improvingtheirlearning efficiency. So it is of great significance to explore deeply into students'negative silence in college class and help teachers and students teach andlearnEnglish language more effectively.

The aims of this research are to get a general knowledge of how college teachersand students understand the negative silence, to explore the causes ofstudents?negative silence in college EFL class, and then to propose some possible solutions tothis issue. According to these aims, the researcher has posed threeresearch questionsto be answered: (1)How do students and teachers understand the negative silence incurrent college EFL class? (2) What are the influencing factors that cause students'negative silence in college EFL class? (3) What methods can be adopted to solve theproblems of students" negative silence in college EFL class?

This research was carried out in Zhejiang Normal University. 204non-Englishmajor freshmen from four classes and 24 English teachers were chosen tobe subjectsof this research. In addition, three research methods---classroomobservation,

1.1 Background of the Research

Although quality-oriented education has been advocated inChina for a long time,and more communication and interaction have been emphasized in language learningclass, classroom observation has

revealed that Chinese students tendto listen quietlyand passively in the college English class. Many teachers usually complain thatstudents' performance in class is too dull. Students prefer to listenand take notesrather than take part in discussions and speak actively. All these can lead to the failureof interaction in English class. Just as Xie Xiaoyan (2010) said inher research,Chinese students were reluctant to participate in class activities; they hardly repliedvoluntarily; they seldom answered, let alone taking initiatives topose some questions;even if they answered, they gave brief replies; they almost did not stand up and spokeout their own ideas even if they had some in mind; they held backfrom expressingtheir different opinions (Jackson, 2002).

The researcher always sees this happen in a college classroom,especially inEnglish class: after the teacher asks a question, most of the studentswant to hidethemselves without saying any words and they worry about beingasked to answer thequestion. However, researches (e.g. Allxight, 1980) have shown that classroomInteraction--- the oral communication that occurs between teachersand students--plays an important role in students' language learning. Teachers are responsible forencouraging students to move towards rich and interactive languagelearning activities.

In Hong Kong, Tsui (1996) reviewed the classroom action research project reports of38 Hong Kong English-language teachers to better

understandstudents' reticence andanxiety. The teachers videotaped or audio-recorded their own lessons and analyzedthat their students were quiet during their class, and over 70%commented thatstimulating the students to express their own opinions was one of theteachers'greatest challenges.

The researcher has spentfour weeks observing in the college English class of the freshmanyear in ZhejiangNormal University. The teachers and students did not realize that the researcher wasobserving them on purpose. So the subjects' actions in class were sincere and reliable,which could completely reflect their trite inner world. The researcher found that incollege EFL class, the teacher played the leading role. Most of the time, the teacherwas the sole activator, while the students tended to keep silent most of the timeespecially when the teacher made little interaction with the students.For instance,when the teacher was busy with interpreting the texts orexplaining the exercises,some students were absent-minded, sleepy, just looking down, or doing somethingirrelevant to the class. Sometimes the teacher left himself talking on the platform; theatmosphere of the class seemed to be frozen and embarrassing and the whole classlacked enthusiasm. As an observer, the researcher really could not recognize whetherthe teacher and students had understood each other, and this will inevitably affect theefficiency of English teaching and learning.

1.2 Purpose and Significance of the Research

1.2.1 Purpose of the Research

This research is aimed to get a better understanding of college students' negativesilence in their English class. Therefore, the first purpose of thisresearch is todiscover the students' and teachers' understanding of students' negative silence incollege EFL class. The second purpose is to find out the majorinfluencing factorswhich cause the students' negative silence through analyzing the datacollected from aseries of questionnaires, interviews and classroom observations. The third one, alsothe ultimate purpose of this research, is to come up with somepossible solutions forsolving the students' negative silence problem.

1.2.2 Significance of the Research

English is a language which needs a lot of indispensable communication to beacquired. So in the college English class, we need to create fullinteraction andcommunication among teachers and students. However, students always keep silentpassively in college EFL class, which is disadvantageous toimproving students'proficiency and restricts the improvements of the English teaching quality. Byconducting deep study on students' negative silence in college EFLclass, we canstudy the main causes of students' silence and put forward corresponding possiblesolutions, and then we can help teachers and students buildharmonious relationship,and make our English class more active.

With the help of the feasible strategies, wecan obviously reduce students' negative silence and break the silence. Besides,

1.3 Significance of the Research

The traditional methods of English teaching ignore helping students perceive and cultivate their ability of English level. Researches have revealed that students? silence in college EFL classroom has brought negative influence on their English proficiency and English communicative competence. It can even hinder the promotion and development of students? overall language competence and makes the transition of teaching approach from a teacher-centered one to a student-centered become impossible. However with the international cooperation and competition getting more and more intense, talents with good English competence are demanded increasingly in contemporary China. Under this circumstance, it puts forward much higher requirements for English teaching and poses requests and challenges on the output and cultivation ofhigh-quality talents in colleges or universities.

3.5 Current Educational Environment

4.3 Solutions on the Part of Educational Environment

4.3.1

4.3.2 Optimize the teaching condition and stimulate students?interest s in learning.

First, Whether on theory or in practice, the multi-media teaching has become the development trend of future college English teaching, under which the traditional teaching facilities should be adjusted accordingly. So schools should try to change the big-class, and provide adequate various teaching facilities. From this teachers can use diverse teaching means to teach, take multimedia teaching for example, which can

make classroom activities richer and bring more fun to students. Second, build a network of independent English learning center for college students, providing rich and colorful network learning resources for students, so that students can not only practice their languageaccording to their own learning levels, but also refer to the taskof classroom activities which their teacher arranged for them to enhance the efficiency of classroom interaction activities. Third, provide the opportunity to exchange n information in English, through organizing the activities such as face to face with the foreign teachers, and study abroad, etc. Then students can contact the authentic language environment and experience the reality of cross-cultural communication, which helps remove the strangeness of their language learning. In addition, optimizing the teaching condition can offer more opportunities for teachers. Through professional training, teachers can improve their professional quality.

4.3.3 Change the teach-thinking and optimize the class teaching organization

In order to get a good teaching result, teachers try to teach with the cramming method of teaching to feed students with a lot of knowledge about their examinations. But the New National Curriculum Standard emphasizes on the overall quality education. Changing the teaching idea and optimizing the organization of classroom teaching are necessary. First of all, firmly establish a student-centered modern teaching thought. Insist on cultivating the language application ability for the teaching goal and carefully study the teaching object, abandon the "cramming" teaching mode but adopt the "heuristic", "participatory", "independent type" teaching methods. Next, scientifically organize the classroom activities. Particularly in the setting questions, teachers should seriously study the rationality of the design of topic, making students "have words to say". Then, pay more attention to the question object?s universality, which can be taken in the form of group discussion and role playing to let all students "have words to say". In addition, focus on establishing a harmonious relationship between teachers and students. By means of the interaction between teachers and students, timely praise, moderate criticism and guidance, building mutual trust relationship between teachers and students, so that it can make students "have words want to say".

Besides, remove the barriers of traditional culture. The traditional Chinese culture is a serious barrier in coping with students? silence in classroom. As we all know, there are differences between Chinese culture and Western culture, especially in language learning. In modern society students should dare to express their opinions, to bring forth new ideas, to challenge themselves or others. So to adapt with the modern education environment, students must change the traditional culture and get rid of these negative traditional thoughts, like “ the squeaky wheel gets the grease”.

And furthermore,optimizing the test system is necessary. Under the pressure of all kinds of tests, teachers are so concerned with how to teach students getting high points or passing these exams that they have little time to devote to exploring students? development. As for this, teachers have to shape their incorrect attitude towards English teaching and learning. Teachers also need to change their and students? exam-oriented thinking. Students should not study only for tests, and teachers cannot teach just for tests. Therefore, relevant educational institutions should reform the examination methods and structures of the integrated test score, encouraging students to be well-rounded.

2.4.4 The class size

Due to the reasons such as the enrollment expansion of colleges and universities, the limited teaching staff and so on, the college English is often in a big-class teaching mode, each class may have 60 students at least. The number of students is large and the English level of students is different. Under this circumstance, the formed teacher-centered teaching mode is hard to change, so the teacher speak and lecture more in the classroom. Students listen for most of time, they seldom communicate and interact. Teachers try to teach all prepared teaching contents to students in the limited time but forget to give enough time and space for students? digesting. For example, if one student participates in classroom activities for a minute per class, all students in this class would get involved for 60 minutes, while there is only45 minutes

in a class. And teachers fail to take into thorough account of every student, while students find it is hard to have a good knowledge of English when exposed to materials unfit for them. Therefore, students form the habit of listening and learning passively and the effective classroom activity is restricted. It is very difficult to ensure that each student can participate in classroom activities in every class, and it is difficult to arouse the students' learning motivation and interest.

Besides, for a long time, teachers often teach on account of the authoritative textbooks. The textbook is created by experts and has been implemented universally among all the country. As the only basis of curriculum implementation, the status of the the textbook is immovable, and it has the only answer. In the view of this, students can do nothing but obey the course book, they dare not to question it, let alone to create. This is against the standard and purpose of teaching.

Bosaki (2005 Krashen (1982) Li Bin(2002)3.3.2.1.1 Teacher?s questions lack of attractiveness

3.3.2.1.2 Waiting time is too short

3.3.2.1.3 Uneven questioning objects

Help to enhance students self-efficacy

4.1.1.1 Improving students? motivation and their self-confidence

4.1.1.2 Improving students? learning strategies

4.1.1.3 Improving students? spirit of adventure

4.1.2 Help students to raise their overall ability of English

4.3.3.1 Optimizing the test system

4.3.3.2 Making full use of inquiry and cooperative teaching in the EFL classroom

5.1 Major Findings

5.2 Limitations for the Research

5.3 Suggestions for Further Research

Chapter 6: Conclusion

Acknowledgments

The thesis cannot be finished without the help of many people. First, i would like to owe a debt of gratitude and my heartfelt thanks to my respectable supervisor, Professor Zhao Yong. She give me invaluable suggestions, illuminating guidance and persistent encouragements to motivate me through all the stages of my thesis writing.

I am especially thanks for her patient reading, careful revision and valuable comments on my draft. Without her timely help and guidance, my thesis would not be smoothly completed.

Then i want to express my thanks to all the professors and teachers in our college, for broadening my view of knowledge. Their enlightening lectures and instructions on linguistics, intercultural communication, English and American literature and translation, pedagogy, psychology help me come over the difficulty in completing my thesis.

Then i am also grateful to all the professors and scholars mentioned in my thesis.

Finally, thanks to my friends and classmates who give me a lot of suggestions and assistance in making my thesis in reality.

1.4 Organization of the Thesis

This thesis consists of five chapters with supplementary materials,such as abstract, acknowledgment,appendix,etc. And the main contents of each chapter are as following:

Chapter one is an introduction to the whole thesis, which contains the research background, the purpose and significance of the study, and the organization of the thesis.

Chapter two is the literature review. It summarizes the definitions, classifications and functions of silence as well as silence in college EFL classroom. And then it presents the previous studies on students? silence and their limitations.

Chapter three is the relative important one chapter among all. It describes the analysis of the main attributions to college students? silence in EFL classroo m, including the importance of students? participation, and the factors from the perspective students, teachers, socio-culture, and educational environment.

Chapter four is the other important part, it mainly states the corresponding solutions to students? silence in EFL classroom.

Chapter five, the last chapter, is the conclusion . There are the summary of major findings ,some limitations for this research, and the suggestions for further research.

On the basis of Oxford Advanced Learner?s English-Chinese Dictionary (the 7th Edition) (2009), “silence” refers to “a situation in which somebody refuses to talk about something or to answer questions; a situation when nobody is speaking”.

Silence has a variety of meanings and a wide range of functions, and the interpretations of silence are highly context-dependent (cf. Saville-Troike 1985; Jaworski 1993, 1997).

Bosacki（2005）defined silence as:⑴a sign of rejection; ⑵fear of social evaluation, ⑶a feeling of invisibility, ⑷expressing social disinterest, ⑸intense intellectual engagement. More specifically, silence can be understood as: a question without being answered, the unwillingness or avoidance of participating conversations with others, a good strategy to help people refrain from direct conflicts, the listeners? “work” in some specific interactions, or even maybe an artistic expression.

As we all know, silence has a diverse concept. And students? silence in college English classroom is just a kind of specific silence. It is a type of classroom silence in the first place, and secondly it is students? classroom silence. It sounds to be a little complex in some extent. So it need us to study and analyze further.

As discussed before, silence has various meanings in different situations, so we

can classify it according to different standards. And it is also true for classroom silence, even the students? silence.

The first one refers to a short pause manifested by hesitation, sentence correction, shuttering, etc., or the deliberate aid by the speaker to strengthen the listener?s comprehension. The second form means an intentional pause in conversation longer than psychological silence, used as a kind of communicative strategy by the speaker to help the listener to infer the hidden meaning. And the last one seems to be the basis of the first two ones because social and cultural customs may “manipulate both psychological and interactive silences”(Bruneau, 1973).

Because the classroom is for talking and discussing, if there is no speaking, no thinking and even no listening from students in a classroom situation, the class will be dull and lifeless. Students? keeping silent in heart from the beginning to the end of the class will freeze the whole English class.

With different classification criterion, students? silence can be grouped into diverse forms. But because students? negative silence always gives an ad verse impact on teacher?s teaching and students? learning, so we must take some measures to solve this tough problem.

Whileaccording to Ikuko Nakane (2003), the functions of silence in communication can be mainly grouped into four functions: cognitive, discursive, affective and social. Cognitive silence forms such as pauses and hesitations for earning cognitive processing time in communication. The discursive silence indicates junctures and meaning or grammatical units in speech. The affective silence is in the management and display of emotion. Finally, its social functions can serve to maintain social distance, to take on conventional styles, to maintain and negotiate power relationships, and to be used as a politeness strategy.

2.5 Summary

This chapter reviews literature on silence, with specific attention to silence in EFL classroom. And these previous studies on students? silence have provided us so much with a large number of valuable materials, such as the

definitions ,classifications and functions of silence, and the related major factors of silence. But, there are still some limitations. so we should put much more emphasis on students? silence in college EFL classroom. We should analyze students? silence in classroom from multiple angles. Therefore, in order to help students to learn and use English well, special attention is worthy of paying.

Classroom silence may act as teacher? silence and students? silence. And there are some obvious differences between their functions. Teacher?s silence in clas sroom plays a very important role in EFL classroom. In classroom teaching, teacher?s silence has a great influence on students? classroom behaviors. One of its function is regulating function. It can reflect on coping with emotions, implying punishment, removing distractions, keeping orders and changing topics. Another function of teacher?s silence is the revelation function is that teacher can create a specific situation to inspire students? thinking and to deepen their impressions on English learning. In a word, teacher?s silence in classroom acts as a significant role in teaching. There also exist many other functions of teacher?s silence but we are primarily analyze students? silence here.

Students? silence is different from teacher?s silence, but it fu nctions as a part of classroom communication, too.

Nakane (2003) explores Japanese student?s silence in Australian university classroom. She discovers that Japanese students are often being silenced by theirs Australian classmates because of their different value of silence. Or we can say they have different cultures and different cognition. And Japanese students? silence can also impede their acquiring the language learning.

Communicative competence is attached much importance in foreign languageclass, so classroom silence brings about much negative influence to language teachingand learning. Chinese students are always considered to be reticent in class, receivingknowledge in a passive way. But with the development of information technology andteaching reform, classroom behavior of college students in the new times is experiencinga change. Therefore, it is necessary to study this phenomenon from a new perspective.

English did not get practiced sufficiently. According to the research findings, the mainreasons causing student silence were the lack of linguistic knowledge and the "silent"habit formed in previous learning experiences. Therefore, it is crucial to strengthen thelearning of basic linguistic knowledge, help students form a positive learning style,improve students' learning interest and establish a relaxed and harmonious languagelearning atmosphere for students.

Combining previous experience and the basis of the author's own class, Through research and analysis, the authors found that lead to the phenomenon of college students' English classroom silence, Li Bin(2002) reveals that the traditional teaching methods seriously affect Chinese students' silence.

3.6 Summary

Based on the above analyses, the causes of students? silence mainly are students? factors, teacher?s factors and the educational environment factors, etc. Therefore, in order to break the classroom silence, we should take some corresponding measures. 4.4 Summary

Factors and forms of students? silence in college EFL class are different, so the solutions are different, it should not be analyzed as a whole. Students? negative silence is not good for teacher?s teaching and students? learning. Teachers should find out the reasons and adopt corresponding measures to improve the classroom teaching mode according to students? requirements, and put the student-centered teaching mode into effect. Besides, students should raise their self-efficacy and change their incorrect attitudes to learning with the help of their teachers. Teachers and students must stand together to build a better classroom environment.

提要:本文是针对情感因素影响大学英语阅读课课堂互动进行的持续三个学期的行动研究项目报告。针对大学英语课上时常出现互动不佳、学生沉默、课堂氛围不够好的情况，只加强对课堂互动重要性的认识，加强对教材的把握，采取积极的教学态度以及改进教学理念等还远远不够。情感也是影响课堂互动的重要因素之一。木研究发现，在采取了多项措施拉近学生与老师的心理距离、帮助学生建立互信合作的关系后，课堂上师生间、学生间的互动都得到了实质性的改观，课堂沉默显著减少。

关键词:大学英语教学;行动研究;课堂互动;师生关系

精读课程每周6课时。课堂互动不好、气氛沉闷，这使学生的学习兴致不高，教学效果也大打折扣。作为老师，笔者相当沮丧。

笔者是一位年轻教师，专业方向是翻译理论与实践，没有经过系统的教师培训。从事教学工作虽然已将近十年，但还不够自信，所以在教学中基木不敢跳教材来教学，多数时候都是按部就班地按照词汇、课文、课后练习的顺序来教授课文，并没有认识到课堂互动的重要性。由于习惯于在课堂上以讲授语言知识点为主，很少设计课堂互动的活动，这在很大程度上影响了课堂上的互动。认识到可能是自己在教材的把握、教学态度、教学理念等方而上的欠缺导致了课堂互动性比较差，笔者就试图从这些方而入手来改进自己的教学，可效果还是不理想。课堂上沉默现象还是时常出现，课堂上互动不起来。

在教授一年级阅读课一个学期的时间里，虽然加强了自己对教材的把握，改进了教学态度、教学理念、教学方法等，但笔者注意到在课堂上沉默现象还是比较严重。对笔者提出的问题学生主动回答比较少，即使在给学生充分的思考时间后，如果不点名让学生起来回答，学生还是经常沉默不答，最终结果往往是笔者提出问题，经过较长时间的沉默等待后由笔者自己尴尬地给出答案。课堂上除了基木的提问外，安排的一些相关活动，如小组讨论等，也都由于多数学生习惯于沉默而不能很好地开展。很多学生在对该课程的学期评估中也提到了课堂沉闷、课堂互动较少或者互动不成功的问题。

2. 2最初的反思

看到课堂上学生这么沉默、互动难以开展，笔者反思了自己和自己的教学，翻阅了研究课堂互动性或课堂沉默的相关文献。徐飞(2003)总结了影响师生课堂互动的五个因素:教师理念、学生理念和学习策略、课堂焦虑、师生关系以及

教学技巧。贾晓琳(2008)提到课堂参与者、课堂任务和活动以及教材与班级大小等影响课堂互动的因素。

细想这些因素，其中有一个被笔者忽略了，那就是师生关系在课堂互动中的作用。项茂英(2003)认为不好的师生关系会减少或减弱课堂互动。谢元花(2006)与滕明兰(2009)则直接谈论了大学课堂沉默中来自教师方而的原因。谢元花(2006)认为教师要不断地调整自己的教学方式、方法，调整自己在课堂上的角色，努力创造一个有序的、宽松的、有趣的课堂环境，减少学生的紧张和焦虑情绪，使学生积极地参与课堂的各项活动。滕明兰(2009)观察到教师的性格特征、教学观念、教学方法和师生关系的亲疏对大学生课堂参与有较大的影响，认为良好的师生关系对于打破大学生课堂沉默，促进学生自主发展，全而提升教学质量有着重要的意义。

国外很多研究者也研究了师生关系对课堂互动的影响。Walsh (2002)认为教师在课堂上使用的语言可以促进和优化或者弱化课堂互动。Poulou (2009)认为在互动积极的课堂上，师生在行为上常表现为相互尊重。Lewis&Hill(2009)认为和谐的师生关系对课堂互动有很大的帮助。

反思笔者自己的教学，的确没有形成能够带来良好课堂互动的师生关系。作为年轻教师，笔者最想做的就是在学生中树立自己的权威。课堂上严肃的表情，课后刻意与学生保持一定距离，这些都让学生对自己敬而远之。在课堂上笔者几乎就是讲授知识，与学生没有多少交流，课后也没有留给学生多少时间和空间与自己沟通、交流。这样笔者与学生之间就形成了放任型的师生关系一一语言知识成为连接师生关系的唯一纽带，认知与情感脱离;与学生之间很少沟通，有距离

感(项茂英2004)。笔者在教学中将认知与情感分离开来了，没有建立平等、互信的师生关系，增加了学生在学习上的焦虑和不安。笔者想如果笔者能够与学生建立平等和谐的关系，课堂沉默的现象应该会得到改善，课堂互动也应该会更好;

3. 1行动设计与实施

项茂英(2004)给出了四条改善师生关系的建议:(1)在教学活动中，教师应把学生看作客户和伙伴，认知与情感并重;(2)增加师生交往的时空，真正了解每一个学生;(3)真诚对待学生，尊重学生;(4)注意评价方式，保护学生的自尊心。根据这些建议，把如何实质改善笔者和学生的关系考虑进去后，笔者从以卜几个方而作出了调整，对教学过程进行了设计和有意识的干预。

1)快速识记每位学生。笔者用两三周的时间记住了班上每一位学生的名字。记住学生的名字会拉近学生与笔者之间的距离，为真正了解学生打卜基础，而且可以更好地针对每一位学生开展教学，作出适当的课堂评价。以前由于很多学生笔者叫不上名字，课堂上让学生回答问题时只能这么提:“第三组倒数第二桌的同学请回答一卜这个问题”，对学生的反应也不能给予合适的反馈。识记学生后，每一位学生都觉得受到了老师的重视，对老师互动的要求会更积极地回应。

2)增加师生沟通的机会。创造和利用更多的时间、空间与学生沟通、交流，拉近与学生之间的心理距离。在课间与学生聊天、谈心，谈他们最近的学习表现，交流学习体会，谈学习态度和学习方法及策略，增进学生与教师的亲近感。针对学生的课堂口头报告，与学生谈论他们对课堂内容的理解以及他们对所涉及主题的看法。教师还需要抽出专门的时间来接待学生。为了方便学生联系，应该把各种联系方式都给学生。此外，教师应该对学生的课外生活给予更多关注，利用各种机会更多地了解学生，从更多渠道更好地了解学生的学习需求。

3)营造轻松的课堂氛围。教师需要改变以往在课堂上不苟言笑的严肃态度，耐心、真诚、平等地对待每一位学生。在课堂上发现并引导学生表现自己的长处，及时给予表扬，不当众批评学生，而是把学生所犯错误提高到知识误区的高度来给全班同学讲解，解除学生在课堂上学习的焦虑与不安情绪。把学生对教师那种敬而远之的心态调整过来，去除他们心中对教师的敬畏感，营造出一个轻松愉快的课堂学习氛围。

4)努力做到认知和情感结合。在教学中教师不能再只重视认知，只传授语言知识，而是需要更多地注意情感因素对教学的影响。努力改变以往只按自己备课内容而不顾学生具体学习需求的上课模式。可以采用让学生写学习反思并匿名上交问卷调查以及个别访谈等几种方式来了解学生对课程的具体需求，了解他们学习的兴趣点和困难点，让学生明白教师不是想一味地教授课本知识，而是更想了解、倾听他们对英语学习的真实想法，不再片面强调学生是否掌握课本知识，而忽视能激发他们学习热情和创造潜能的师生情感交流。

3. 2观察与发现令笔者感到高兴的是，课堂上沉默的现象有所改善，课堂互动也能开展起来，在小组讨论之类的活动中学生变得活跃了。这些改变主要体现在课堂话语量、参与度和课堂配合等几个方而。

1)课堂话语量增多。学生不再像以前那样不愿甚至躲避课堂互动活动，在课堂上发言时自信心更强，能更详细地阐述自己的观点。有些学习成绩好的同学，因为原木的语言功底好而更加愿意在同学而前表达自己的看法，而对自己语言能力不太自信的学生也能积极地回答笔者上课时的提问，与同学积极讨论课文主题。学生们原先在课下跟笔者请假时说话都会结巴，甚至嘴角抽搞。在笔者找时间与他聊了几次之后，该生在课堂上能克服原木高度的紧张感，积极回答问题，