VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES PHẠM THỊ NGỌC THANH EXPLORING NON-ENGLISH MAJOR STUDENTS’ AND TEACHERS’ PERCEPTIONS OF SILENCE IN TERTIARY EFL CLASSROOMS IN VIETNAM (Tìm hiểu góc nhìn của sinh viên không chuyên và giáo viên về sự im lặng trong lớp học tiếng Anh ở một trường đại học ở Việt Nam) M. MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 8140231.01 HÀ NỘI - 2020 i TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com DECLARATION I hereby certify that the thesis entitled “Exploring non-English major students’ and teachers’ perceptions of silence in tertiary EFL classrooms in Vietnam” was carried out and submitted in partial fulfilment of the Degree of Master of Arts at the Faculty of Post-Graduate Studies, University of Languages and International Studies, Vietnam National University, Hanoi. I also declare that this work is original and all the names of researchers and their research mentioned in this paper were comprehensively cited and listed in the Reference. ii TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First and foremost, I would like to express my profound gratitude and regard to my devoted supervisor, Dr.
Hoàng Thị Hạnh, for her very detailed and enthusiastic guidance and constant feedback on every single part of my graduation paper. Her great support was the motivation for me to try my best in completing this paper. Without her help and guidance, I would not have been able to finish this research paper. Next, I want to give my sincere thank to my beloved family members who have always given me great encouragement from the first days when I started my Master course.
I am also very grateful to receive support from my uncles, aunts and my friends who were always willing to help me during my process of writing this paper. Finally, I want to show my appreciation for the responsible participation of all the teachers and students at the university in Hai Phong city where I conducted this study. Without their contribution and support, I would not be able to complete this research. iii TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com ABSTRACT This paper explores the perceptions of both non-English major students and their English teachers on students‟ silence during teacher-student interactions in English lessons at tertiary level.
Qualitative research design was employed with data collected from classroom observations, retrospective interviews and semi-structured debriefing sessions, and with the participation of 91 non-English major students and their four English teachers. The findings reveal that students‟ silence is not always a barrier to learning. Students can actively choose to keep silent as it is their learning style and habit, or in order to facilitate their learning by interpreting learning materials, retrieving and recalling knowledge, enhancing their own works and listening to learn from others. Silence that hinders the learning process is found to be associated with different intertwining factors including cultural, competence factor, affectional and contextual factors relating to learning environment, teacher and peers.
Interestingly, teachers were found to better understand students‟ silence and contributing factors to it when they observed and commented on students‟ silence during the retrospective interview. This research findings suggest that English teachers be sensitive in interpreting students‟ silence, listen to their voice to reduce passive silence, appropriately utilize lessons‟ time to support students‟ silence for learning purposes, and devise more effective activities to scaffold students‟ learning and facilitate more active class interaction. iv TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.vietnam LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES List of tables: Table 3.1: The Descriptions of English Teachers in Observations Table 3.2: The Descriptions of Students in Observations Table 3.3: The Descriptions of Students in Interviews Table 3.4: The Descriptions of Teachers in Interviews Table 3.5: The coding scheme List of figures: Figure 3.1: Phases in data collection procedure v TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.vietnam TABLE OF CONTENTS DECLARATION .iv LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES. Statement of the problem and the rationale for the study.
Aims and objectives of the study. Significance of the study. Scope of the study. Organization of the study.
3 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW. Interaction in EFL classrooms. Factors relating to the effectiveness of EFL classroom interaction. Silence phenomenon during classroom interaction.
Perception of students’ silence in classroom interactions. Teachers‟ perception of students‟ silence. Students perceptions of students‟ silence. Related studies on silence in classroom interaction and research gap.
9 vi TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail. The selection of participants. Descriptions of the participants. Data collection instruments.
Observation and audio-visual recording. Video stimulated recall interview. Semi-structured interview. Data collection procedure.
Data analysis methods and procedure. 14 CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION. Students’ perception of silence. Teachers’ perception of students’ silence.
Summary of major findings. Implications of the research. Limitations of the research. Suggestions for further studies.
49 vii TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.vietnam TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.vietnam CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1. Statement of the problem and the rationale for the study In English as a Foreign Language (EFL) classroom environment, interaction constitutes an integral part of the learning process as it fosters students‟ linguistic and communicative competence by providing them opportunities to practice the targeted language (Yu, 2008). This means that the lack of opportunities to communicate in these classroom settings might become a barrier to students‟ language development. Thus, silence, which refers to the absence of talk and limited interaction in classroom contexts (White & Smith, 1996), could be considered as an obstacle to the English learners‟ language learning process.
It has been found in previous studies that students‟ silence does exist in classroom interactions (Schultz, 2012; Bao, 2013; Santosa & Mardiana, 2018). Silence is a complicated classroom phenomenon and carries multiple meanings because it is influenced by numerous factors such as student factor, teacher factor, cultural factor (Yu, 2016), syllabus and classroom factors (Bao, 2013), subject content and classmate factors (Nguyen, 2015). Hence, observers, teachers, classmates and students themselves may have different perspectives about the meanings or functions of students‟ silence in classrooms. Consequently, construing such classroom phenomenon is a challenging task which requires more in-depth investigation into the perceptions of all participants.
Asian learners, in English classrooms, tend to remain silent and not willing to answer questions or express ideas during class activities (Bao, 2013; Nguyen, 2015; Yu, 2016; Han, 2016). Vietnamese students do have the same tendency during classroom interactions (Yates & Trang, 2012; Nguyen, 2015). In the EFL teaching contexts of Vietnam, where communicative language teaching (CLT) principles have been encouraged (Mai, 2017), such shortage of interaction in English classes is seen as problematic. However, the question of whether such silence only demonstrates the intentionally limited participation or it also holds other meanings and functions is still 1 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.vietnam left unanswered.
Therefore, it is crucial to carry out studies to further examine and to better understand the silence phenomenon in English lessons in Vietnam. This paves the way for the researcher to conduct research to investigate how students‟ silence is perceived by the students themselves and their English teachers during tertiary EFL classroom interactions. Aims and objectives of the study The study aims at probing the perceptions of students and teachers about silence during EFL classroom interaction at tertiary level in Vietnam. These overall aims are specified into the following objectives: + To investigate non-English major students‟ perception of silence during classroom interaction + To investigate English teachers‟ perception of their student‟s silence during classroom interaction 1.
Research questions The aforementioned objectives are expected to be achieved through answering the following research questions: 1. How do the students perceive their silence during classroom interaction? 2. How is their silence perceived by the teachers during classroom interaction? 1. Significance of the study The study is carried out, firstly, to provide cognizance of how students‟ silence is demonstrated during teacher-student interactions in English classes at university level in Vietnam and how its meanings and functions are perceived by the students themselves and their English teachers.
Next, for pre-service and in-service English teachers, the outcomes of this research might be a useful reference material for them to understand more about their students and can compare their understanding with perceptions of other teachers and students of silence in class. Finally, after being 2 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.vietnam completed, this study is expected to serve as a reliable and helpful source for other researchers who share the same interest in the topic and to throw new light on the understanding of students‟ silence during English lessons at tertiary level. Scope of the study With regard to perceptions of silence in EFL classroom settings, the research could not cover all types of silence and perceptions of all participants who have experienced silence in class. It only focused on university students‟ and their English teachers‟ perceptions of students‟ silence in EFL classrooms.
In addition, the population of this study was limited to non-English major students and their English teachers at a university outside Hanoi. Organization of the study This paper consists of five chapters. Chapter 1 presents problem statement, rationale, and the aims, significance and scope of the study. Chapter 2 mentions the definitions of key terms and a critical review of related literature.
Chapter 3 indicates the participants, methods and procedure of data collection and analysis. Next, chapter 4 presents the analysis and discussion of the findings of this research to answer the two research questions. In the final chapter, the researcher will provide the summary of the findings, contribution of this research and its limitations together with some suggestions for further studies. 3 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.vietnam CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 2.
Interaction in EFL classrooms Interaction in EFL classrooms is considered beneficial for second language (L2) learning process since it helps learners in improving their communicative abilities through negotiation and collaboration (Brown, 2000), and modifying and developing their language system (Loewen & Sato, 2018; Walsh, 2011). Thus, English teachers who determine and structure interactive activities in class might facilitate or inhibit students‟ opportunities to learn the target language. Walsh (2011) states that communication, which refers to the ways that language is used to encourage interaction, is essential in teaching and learning because “it underpins everything that goes on in classrooms” (p. Walsh (2011) also believes that if students are not engaged in communicative activities actively, they might lose chance to try and find out their own strategies to deal with the new language.
Hence, it is crucial for teachers to motivate learners to participate in communicative activities or conversational interaction, and to produce communicative outputs (Harmer, 2001) in EFL classrooms. Factors relating to the effectiveness of EFL classroom interaction Different researchers found out various factors that might contribute to effective classroom interaction. First, Al-Zahrani and Al-Bargi (2017) asserted that the negotiation of meaning can be a central aspect of classroom interaction. This means that students are encouraged to use strategies to prevent the breakdown of communication (Ellis & Barkhuizen, 2005) and involve themselves actively in both teacher-student and student-student interaction.
Second, teachers‟ questioning techniques was believed to be an influential factor that helps students become involved in classroom interaction (Qashoa, 2013). This emphasizes the importance of the way teachers choose and use questions in EFL class to motivate students to communicate. There are two common types of questions utilized by teacher that are display questions and referential ones (Walsh, 2011). Besides, the perceptions of students about 4 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.vietnam themselves and about other peers were found to affect classroom interaction, as illustrated in Lensmire (2010) and Wortham (2004).
Next, students‟ competence was found by Good et al. (1987) to be related to interaction. Good et al. (1987) found that higher competent learners were more active in participating and raising questions while weaker students tend to be more passive during classroom conversations.