Silence phenomenon after teacher’s post question wait time in vietnamese efl classroom

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHER EDUCATION GRADUATION PAPER SILENCE PHENOMENON AFTER TEACHER’S POST-QUESTION WAIT-TIME IN VIETNAMESE EFL CLASSROOM Supervisor : Vũ Tường Vi, M.A Student : Đặng Nguyệt Thu Course : QH2012.F1.E1 HÀ NỘI - 2016 ĐẠI HỌC QUỐC GIA HÀ NỘI TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC NGOẠI NGỮ KHOA SƯ PHẠM TIẾNG ANH KHÓA LUẬN TỐT NGHIỆP HIỆN TƯỢNG HỌC SINH GIỮ IM LẶNG SAU KHI GIÁO VIÊN KẾT THÚC THỜI GIAN CHỜ SAU MỖI CÂU HỎI TẠI LỚP HỌC TIẾNG ANH Ở VIỆT NAM Giáo viên hướng dẫn : Th.s Vũ Tường Vi Sinh viên : Đặng Nguyệt Thu Khóa : QH2012.F1.E1 HÀ NỘI - 2016 ACCEPTANCE PAGE I hereby state that I: Dang Nguyet Thu, group 12E1, being a candidate for the degree of Bachelor of Arts (TEFL) accept the requirements of the College relating to the retention and use of Bachelor‟s Graduation Paper deposited in the library In terms of these conditions, I agree that the origin of my paper deposited in the library should be accessible for the purposes of study and research, in accordance with the normal conditions established by the librarian for the care, loan or reproduction of the paper Dang Nguyet Thu May, 2016 i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS In the first place, I would love to show my gratitude to Ms Vu Tuong Vi for supervising this graduate paper During the process of conducting the research, she has been always supportive and enthusiastically helping me to accomplish the paper Thanks for her insight and expertise in research area, all of the difficulties and hardship I have encountered when working on the paper have been overcome with great assistance Additionally, I am also immensely grateful to two fifth grade groups and their English teacher of the Olympia schools for spending time sharing their precious points of view with me during the process of collecting data Without their considerable support, my research would have not been intact Lastly, I want to express my sincere thanks to my family members for sparing me time for conducting the research, especially my mother During the most discouraging and stressful period, she has been always beside and encouraged me ii ABSTRACT Silence phenomenon in education is a research area of educational psychology, which has been taken into investigation for decades Silence phenomenon has a strong connection with classroom management because it affects both teacher and students in class Some scholars claim that students‟ silence can take positive effects on students as it allows them to spend time thinking Others argue that this phenomenon is negative because it limits cooperation and interaction between teacher and students, which impacts on teaching and learning process Silence phenomenon, in general, has its own merits in education; however, the reasons behind are unknown This is the motivation for the researcher to conduct this study with a view to (1) unveiling reasons beyond students‟ silence, (2) finding out the common types of teacher‟s questions and the allocation of wait-time for each of them together with (3) figuring out teacher‟s strategies to deal with silent students This study adopted mixed methods research which is about the combination of qualitative and quantitative methods In particularly, the author made use of three different data collection instruments namely questionnaire, observation and semi-structured interview The results from data analysis showed that personal problems were students‟ most frequent reasons for not responding actively to teacher‟s questions Also, understanding question type was the most common category that teacher used in class Lastly, teacher strongly prefered rewarding system as a method of encouraging silent students to participate in class iii TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgements i Abstract ii List of tables vi List of figures vii List abbreviation viii PART A INTRODUCTION 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 paper Method of the research PART B DEVELOPMENT Chapter Literature review An overview of silence phenomenon 1.1 Definition of silence in educational context 1.2 Previous studies of silence in educational context Wait-time and types of wait-time 11 2.1 Definition of wait-time 11 2.2 Types of wait-time 12 Classification of teachers’ questions in class 3.1 Types of teacher‟s questions in class 15 15 3.2 The relationship between wait-time and teacher‟s questions 18 iv Research gap Chapter 2 19 Methodology Research method 21 1.1 Mixed methods 21 1.2 Mixed methods procedure 24 1.3 The research questions 25 1.4 The participants 25 Data collection instruments 27 2.1 Questionnaire 27 2.2 Semi-structured interview 28 2.3 Observation 29 Chapter Data analysis, discussion of major findings and recommendations Data analysis 30 Major findings and discussion 42 Recommendations 45 3.1 Recommendations to students 45 3.2 Recommendations to teacher 47 PART C CONCLUSIONS Summary of major findings and recommendations 50 Conclusions 51 Limitations and suggestions for further study 52 v REFERENCES 53 APPENDICES Appendix 55 Appendix 60 Appendix 61 vi LIST OF TABLES Table Table Table Name of tables Long and Santo‟s (1984) taxonomy of teacher‟s questions The number of categorized questions and the allocation of wait-time Page 18 38 vii LIST OF FIGURES Figure Name Page Figure Revised Bloom‟s Taxonomy about six levels of cognition Three ways of mixing Quantitative and 17 Figure Figure Figure Figure Figure Figure Figure Figure Figure 10 Figure 11 Qualitative Data Steps in conducting a scholar mixed methods study Students' self-evaluation of their participation in class The comparison of active participation ratio between Group A and Group B English competency as a reason for not responding to teacher‟s questions Other factors that cause students‟ silence in class Students‟ evaluation of teacher‟s questions Students‟ opinions on the necessity of waittime Students‟ opinions on the allocation of wait-time Teacher‟s strategies to deal with silence phenomenon 22 24 30 31 32 33 35 36 37 39 47 Raise awareness of taking responsibility in class No matter which methods students adopted to transform themselves, their sense of responsibility in class is considerably emphatic It is the role and responsibility of students that they are supposed to participate in class and cooperate with teacher well in order to obtain the best results in learning There are some examples of responsible actions in class: + Prepare lessons well before class begins: Students are suggested to accomplish assignment and preview the main content of the lessons before class begins This way can prevent students from being inattentive in case the content is quite challenging to them + Listen to and follow teacher’s instruction carefully: To be able to respond to teacher‟s questions, students have to follow teacher‟s lecturing and instruction 3.2 Recommendations to teacher Understand behaviors and psychological development of students It is the role of teacher to get control of his students in order to create cooperation and connection among class members and teacher The act of understanding psychological features of each student will benefit teacher considerablely in teaching given that he might know what works best for his students and then can improve the worst situations Also, it allows teacher to form equal evaluations for students Emphasize the responsibility of students’ participation in class It is the role of students to cooperate with teacher so that the best results from the lesson can be achieved Therefore, the responsibility of students in actively participating in class must be emphasized since the first day at school Also, teacher should set out some rules such as grading policy for students to follow Vary teaching methods and strategies to motivate students 48 The loyalty to one teaching method might be detrimental to teaching and learning quality because it tends to cause boredom of both teacher and students Therefore, it is suggested that teacher should have a change in teaching methods to increase students‟ participation in class Another aspect to concern is the strategies of motivating students Although the teacher in the study has a number of good strategies, there are several methods that he might want to adopt + Take advantage of non-verbal cues: Teacher can establish his own system of non-verbal signals in class so as for students to follow, especially when they have to demonstrate their viewpoints In case of showing agreement with other ideas, for example, students might knot their head instead of responding to the others + Organize comfortable classroom seating position: An adaptation to classroom seating might comfort students Along with traditional setting, teacher can group students and let them choose their seats or he can arrange U-shaped classroom for a sake of increasing discussing atmosphere + Specify teacher’s encouraging responses: “Very good” or “good” might be too general for a couple of students and if those comments keep being repeated, some students possibly find them discouraged Therefore, it is recommended that teacher give more specific comments on students‟ performance such as telling them which part of their answer is good In other words, teacher had better explain for their praises Plan and organize questions before class Teacher‟s questioning techniques is proved to help increase students‟ engagement in class Therefore, it is necessary for a teacher to have a good set of questions before class The pre-stage of composing questions relates to preparation process, which means teacher is advised to plan a set of questions, which are supposed to support lesson content, and then organize them based on logical order or difficulty level Moreover, sub-questions are also essential in case students cannot comprehend primary queries 49 Provide individual care for silent students After getting familiar with the characteristics of each member in class, teacher should have a private talk with students who rarely participate actively in class The informal discussion with them aims at figuring out their personal problems and also finding a solution to help them become more actively engaged in class Teacher‟s individual care might be time-consuming but it seems to generate potential results Coordinate with the head teacher of the class and students’ parents It will not be intact if English teacher does not coordinate with head teacher of the class and students‟ parents Those people have a close-knit relationship with the children; thus, they must know the children quite well In case of silent students, English teacher should inform head teacher and their parents about their children‟s in-class performance in order to find out the most possible solutions It must be guaranteed that they will not enforce their children to become more orally active because enforcement might trigger counter-effects 50 PART C: CONCLUSIONS Summary of major findings and recommendations Silence phenomenon of students in class is quite popular over the world and it is one of the teacher‟s concerns because the cooperation between teacher and students are considerably important in class Although there are a number of academics conducting research about this issue, none of them studies about the silence phenomenon after teacher‟s post-question wait-time It can be said that questioning techniques play an essential role in developing students‟ understanding of the lesson, provoking their thinking and increasing their participation in class as well However, questions are not only factors that relate to students‟ in-class engagement As a result, the researcher expects to figure out other possible reasons why students keep silent in class, especially the period of post-question wait-time Along with factors causing students‟ silence, common teacher‟s question types and his strategies to deal with silence phenomenon are taken into investigation as well The data collected from mixed method help the researcher to diagnose some major reasons that prevent students from actively participating in class The basic factors relate to students‟ personal problems rather than teacher‟s questions Among all listed reasons, low English competency, lack of confidence and the fear of receiving negative evaluations from both teacher and peers are three frequent problems that most students encounter The fact that teacher‟s questions are not biggest concerns of students is due to teacher‟s selection of suitable types with their cognitive development The most adopted question type is made up questions requiring students to show their understanding of the lesson Regarding strategies to deal with students‟ silence, teacher uses rewarding system most frequently in order to encourage students to contribute their ideas Recommendations are offered to teacher and students about the possible ways of improving current situation For students, they are suggested to improve their English ability in order to gain more confidence when delivering 51 speech in public Moreover, having informal discussion with teacher about personal problems and reporting bullying cases are also great ways to get comfort in class and to make progress with personal capabilities Lastly, the use of wait-time effectively can help students have more profound answers and then they might be more confident in themselves In terms of teacher, the first and foremost suggestion is to gain insightful understanding of students and try to provide individual care for silent students so that both teacher and learners can solve the problem Also, teacher should pay attention to vary teaching methods and strategies for motivating students to create excitement of learners and increase their in-class participation Arranging classroom seating and organizing questions beforehand might comfort students and generate better results Lastly, teacher should take advantage of relationship between head teacher of the class, students and their parents by coordinating with them in diagnosing learners‟ problems and helping tackle them Conclusions The research is carried out to find the answer to three questions: What are the factors causing silence phenomenon? What are the common types of teacher’s questions and how much wait-time is spent on each question? How does teacher deal with silent students after questions are posed? The three research questions have been fully answered in the chapter of the study where data analysis, discussion of major findings and recommendations are demonstrated Overall, silence phenomenon can be considered both positive and negative due to several reasons It might be positive if students use silence to process their thinking and reflect on the lesson After teacher poses questions, the period of silence is quite worthy because it help students to think about the question and come up with the answer for it However, the negative side of silence occurs when teacher cannot know what students are thinking, which results in learning 52 outcomes Also, students‟ silence might hinder teacher from assessing and evaluating students‟ performance as well as the effectiveness of the lesson Limitations and suggestions for further study The research has been conducted in the fourth semester of the Olympia schools, an international educational system in Hanoi with the participation of 41 students and one English native teacher of grade Although the researcher has succeeded in answering three research questions, the limitations are unavoidable First, due to the absence of some students, the writer is unable to collect data with all of the fifth graders Also, the limitation of time restricts the paper in the last weeks of the fourth semester only; thus, a number of observations are not sufficient Additionally, some issues related to the research topic have not discussed thoroughly As questions and wait-time are in connection with students‟ participation, the author has not evaluated the effectiveness of using each question type and wait-time on increasing students‟ in-class engagement The issue related to teacher‟s adoption of several encouraging strategies is in the same situation It is hoped that other researchers will be able to find solutions to those limitations They are suggested to carry out the study in longer period of time and with full participation of expected participants Moreover, the future authors are expected to figure out the effectiveness of using each question type, wait-time and teacher‟s motivating strategies on increasing students‟ in-class engagement (Word count: 14 231 words) 53 REFERENCES Al-Halawachy, H F (2014) ELF learner‟s silence at university level: where to? Journal of educational and practice, 5(12) Retrieved from www.iiste.org Bao, D (2013) Understanding silence and reticence: ways of participating in second language acquisition Australia: Bloomsbury Academic Dulay, H., Burt, M & Krashen, S (1982) Language two New York: Oxford University Press Ellis, R (2012) Language teaching research and language pedagogy Malden, Mass.: Wiley-Blackwell Gillham, B (2000) Developing a Questionnaire London: Continuum Heinze, A & Erchard, M (2006) How much time students have to think about teacher questions? An investigation of the quick succession of teacher questions and student responses in the German mathematics classroom ZDM Mathematics education, 38 Retrieved from http://subs.emis.de/journals/ZDM/zdm065a4.pdf Hoang, H A (2008) Developing critical reading skills for first year students in English department, College of foreign languages, Vietnam National University, Hanoi (MA thesis) University of languages and international studies, VNU, Hanoi King, J E (2011) Silence in the second language classroom (Unpublished doctoral dissertation) University of Nottingham: London Krashen, S.D (1985) The Input Hypothesis: Issues and Implications New York: Longman Liu, J (2001) Asian students' classroom communication patterns in U.S universities an emic perspective Westport, Conn.: Ablex Mackey, Alison., & Gass, M Susan (2005) Second language research: Methodology and Design Mahwah, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Publishers 54 McComas, W F & Abraham, L (n.d) Asking more effective questions Retried from http://cet.usc.edu/resources/teaching_learning/docs/Asking_Better_Questions.pdf Nguyen, T N T (n.d) Decoding EFL learners’ in-class silence Retrieved from http://www.vnseameo.org/TESOLConference2015/Materials/Fullpaper/Ms.%20 Nguyen%20Thi%20Ngoc%20Thao.pdf Reda, M (2009) Between speaking and silence: A study of quiet students Albany, NY: State University of New York Press Sadker, D (n.d) Excerpt from “classroom questions - types of questions, feedback, and effective questioning practices” Retrieved from https://www.alsde.edu/sec/ari/Literacy%20and%20Justice/Classroom%20Questi ons%20Article.pdf Stahl, R J (1995) Using "Think-Time" and "Wait-Time" Skillfully in the Classroom Retrieved from http://www.ericdigests.org/1995-1/think.htm Szulevicz, T (2013) Observational Methods in Educational Psychology Abstract from International Congress of Qualitative Inquiry, Champaign, Illinois, United States Tobin, K (1987) The Role of Wait Time in Higher Cognitive Level Learning Review of Educational Research Spring , 57, 69-95 doi: 10.3102/00346543057001069 Williams, C (2007) Research methodology Journal of business and economic research, (3), 65-72 DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.19030/jber.v5i3.2532 55 APPENDICES APPENDIX Questionnaire Silence phenomenon after teacher’s post-question wait-time in Vietnamese EFL classroom I am Dang Nguyet Thu from QH2012.F1.E1 I am doing a research on “Silence phenomenon during teacher‟s post-question waittime in Vietnamese ELF classroom” Your cooperation in finishing this survey will be of great help for my study I guarantee that all your personal information as well as answers will be kept confidential and used for research purposes only Thank you very much for your valuable time and support! PERSONAL INFORMATION Name: Class: Phone number: SURVEY How active are you in responding to in-class teacher’s questions? Please put a tick  next to the response you choose: 56 Very active (You always contribute your ideas to teacher‟s questions) Quite active (You sometimes contribute your ideas to teacher‟s questions) Not active at all (You rarely or never contribute your ideas to teacher‟s questions) How often is each of the following statements the reason for not responding to teacher’s questions? Please rate the reasons below on the scale from 1-5 Note: Skip this question if your response to the question is “Very active” Reasons for not responding to teacher’s questions (Never) (Rarely) (Sometimes) (Often) (Always) You are afraid of giving wrong answers You are afraid of making grammatical errors You are afraid of mispronouncing some English words You are afraid of giving excellent answers You are afraid of receiving negative evaluation from peers You are afraid of receiving negative evaluation from teacher 57 You are unable to catch teacher‟s utterances You are lacking in confidence You are lacking in lexical resources 10 You are lacking in preparation Reasons for not responding to teacher’s questions (Never) (Rarely) (Sometimes) (Often) (Always) 11 You are lacking in motivation Please specify: ……………………………………………………………………………… ………………………………………………………………………………… (E.g.: no rewarding/ no interest in English etc.) 12 You intend to show your rebellious attitude 13 The questions are ambiguous 14 The questions are too difficult for you to comprehend 58 15 The questions are too easy for you to answer 16 The questions are boring In your opinions, is silence necessary for students to prepare for their answers after questions are posed? Please put a tick  next to the response you choose: Strongly disagree Disagree Neither agree nor disagree Agree Strongly agree How much time you think will be enough for you to get ready for the answers to teacher’s questions? Please put a tick  next to the response you choose: 59 seconds seconds - seconds seconds - 10 seconds Others (please specify:……………………………) Thank you for your cooperation! 60 APPENDIX QUESTIONS FOR TEACHER What you think of students‟ silence during teacher‟s post-question wait-time? Do you believe that students need some moments of being silent to think about their answers before responding to your questions? How much time will be enough for them to process the questions and come up with their answer? Do you think it can be a problem if students‟ silence overruns your waittime estimation? In those cases, what are your solutions? In general, you agree or disagree with a notion that student‟s silence is a negative signal? 61 APPENDIX QUESTIONS FOR STUDENTS Why you choose “always” option for your fear of making grammar errors? Why are you always afraid of receiving negative evaluations of your classmates/ teacher? Do you have any memories related to this situation? Do you agree or disagree with a notion that student‟s silence is a negative signal? ... of students‟ silence after teacher poses questions in an English class in Vietnam Wait- time and types of wait- time 2.1 Definition of wait- time The first concept of wait- time as an instructional... Types of wait- time In the publication Using “think -time? ?? and ? ?wait- time? ?? skillfully in the classroom (1994), Stahl divides wait- time into categories based on the occurring place and their main functions... overview of silence phenomenon 1.1 Definition of silence in educational context 1.2 Previous studies of silence in educational context Wait- time and types of wait- time 11 2.1 Definition of wait- time