AStudyofSpeakingReticenceinChineseOralEnglishClass

【Abstract】This research is about the investigation of speaking reticence in Chinese oral English class. Through analyzing the challenges faced in oral English teaching， some suggestions and implications will be presented.

【Key words】Speaking reticence； Oral English

【作者簡介】袁夏，成都大學。

I. Introduction

Nowadays， with the rapid development of society， globalization have became the mainstream thus the requirement for communication between people from different countries with different languages has increased. English， as a global dominant language， serves this communicative function in many countries， so does in China.

However， having put emphasis on exam-oriented English teaching for a long time， the Chinese education system has ignored the importance of English speaking ability. Thus the Chinese students communication ability in English remains lower compared with reading and listening ability. Most students seems to consent that input is more significant than output， so they just try to be a good listener in English class instead of actively participating in it.

The biggest problem under this situation is oral English. Even though they have memorized lots of vocabularies and have a high accuracy of grammar， they still prefer to keep silent in oral English class， which is the speaking reticence. It is a common phenomenon that the teacher is keeping talking in class without students responses when raising questions. Even in a group work at class， the students either keep silent or discuss questions in Chinese. Most of them even regard these kinds of oral practices as a waste of time and think it should be replaced by teachers tutorial. As the results， oral English became a big problem among Chinese students. The more they resisted speaking， the worse situation it might be. Therefore， communication， the ultimate goal of English learning， has not been achieved.

Tsui（1996） has argued that learners from Asia are more reticent than learners from Western countries. The typical type of Asia students has been identified as “obedient listeners”（Littlewood， 2000）. Not only me have this problem， but also many other learners have encountered this speaking problem. There is no doubt that many Chinese students are able to gain 7， 8 or even 9 in IELTS reading and listening part but seldom can gain over 7 at speaking and writing part. There is still a long distance between output and input （Swain， 1985）.

II. Reasons

As far as I am concerned， the main reasons that caused the problem of oral English for the speaking reticence are as follows：

First， students are afraid of making mistake. Although students have ability to speak English， they still worry about losing face in oral English class （Cortazzi， 1996）. Even though they sometimes have something to say， they shall still keep silent for believing that being silent is the safest way. Affected by the traditional opinion， they still regard making mistake as face losing. Another reason of fearing for making mistake is that many students want to pursue perfect （Price， 1991）. Using Chinese to communicate with classmates is more skillful and convenient thus giving them more confidence. So it results in discussing in Chinese when students are required to have a group discussion. Moreover， we can find that there is always some particular person fond of keeping silent， because the study have shown that students who are introverted and shy prefer to listen to others speaking （Ellis， 1999）.

Second， students lack ability to speak. Because of the exam-oriented education of English， students are good at reading， listening， writing but bad at speaking. For a long time students are not taught the speaking ability so their speaking reticence is really caused by their incompetence. For example， they will have difficulty to use vocabulary and grammar to explain their meaning even having learned this vocabulary and grammar. To learn and to use are different things. Besides， in a long time， we ignored the importance of English speaking because English speaking is not tested in English exam in China. So sometimes we even think speaking is a waste of time.

There are many reasons such as lacking of interest in the topic， insufficient preparation before speaking， inability to understand the discussion requirement， wrong cultural beliefs， etc. Speaking reticence is common in oral English class and much emphasis has been put on it including the increased requirement for oral English in English teaching syllabus. Teachers had tried many ways in oral English class to solve this problem such as designing many interesting activities， which facilitates the overcoming of speaking reticence. But since this is a long-lasting and universal problem in China， it is still a long way for teachers to consider about the solution.

III. Evaluation

Definitely， there are still potential problems the teacher might encounter delivering the lessons.

First， the classroom atmosphere might not be as positive， active and comfortable as they intended. Although they will try to be friendly to students and avoid showing authority， but the long-lasting traditional value in China tend to regard teacher as authority， so the students tend to be good listener to show their respect to the teachers. The teacher-centered classroom is very common phenomena， so the teacher will be afraid of their students still keeping silent when raising questions. For example， it is possible that no one will response to the teachers questions. If choosing someone instead of a volunteer to answer the question， this will result in stressful atmosphere as well and the students may even remains more silent in later class because of fearing for being noticed. When they were assigned group work task， the obvious and common situation is that all the students keep silent and they seems to achieve the agreement to speak nothing. Therefore， creating a good study environment is very important but difficult. The teacher should pay attention to and deliberately control this through the whole class teaching process， to create a “friendly， supportive and non-threatening” learning environment （Liu， 2005）， for the atmosphere might have a big influence on the classroom output.

Second， the students might do activity by using Chinese. When they were assigned tasks during group work， since all students are form China， they tend to finish the task by speaking Chinese. Because their Chinese is obviously better than English， so they just subconsciously aim to finish the task and ignore that the teaching aim is to encourage them to speak English. Or sometimes， at the beginning of their discussion， they do speak English， but later when their intended meaning can not be understand by their partner， they give up to try to explain and paraphrase their meaning. At the embarrassment situation， they intend to explain their meaning in Chinese and then their partners also forget the aim of using English but simply communicate with each other in Chinese.

Third， the students may not succeed in presentation. This situation is always occurring in classroom that students can talk to each other freely and comfortably but meet problem when speaking in public. Some students may suddenly stop and be silent at their presentation. It might be caused by their nervous to speak or the fear for public speaking. This situation will not only cause the losing of confidence of students themselves but also hindering the whole classroom teaching. At the moment， this student has already been very nervous， and since they cannot speak they will be more nervous. When other students witness this situation， they will become nervous too. So in this situation， the teacher must play a very important role. It requires teachers appropriate feedback， which should be considered about how to encourage students to speak and how to erase his nerves at that time， thus controlling the class development.

Fourth， the active students are always someone particular while most people still keep silent. Sometimes in their group the active person is always the specific one and most person just keep silent to listen. This is similar as the mode of listening to the teacher. When they are preparing for the role-play， there is always someone control the whole process and what other people need to do is just follow his or her instruction without discussion and communication. One just needs to ask questions and another keeps talking without stopping. So some introverted and shy people might always have the problem of speaking reticence. Therefore teaching aim is still not achieved. Those active persons have never meet the problem of speaking reticence but those one indeed have the problem of speaking English cannot overcome their speaking reticence through the class.

Fifth， the material might not raise students interests thus leading failure of communication. Since every one has different experiences and preferences， a single topic cannot meet their requirement at all. The problem is that the teacher cannot evaluate the students real preference before the class， so actually teachers should presented more topics to students or even let they determine what topic to talk about. As Tudor（1993） stated， students shall be more active when they can determine the material and have raised suggestion to material chosen. The sense of ownership can increase their motivation to improve their oral English （Williams， 1997）.

IV. Conclusion

Due to a series of reasons， many students have the problem of speaking reticence in China. Although this problem has already been attached importance but many potential problem still exit in the lesson. I think the most fundamental and significant solution to this problem is to create friendly， comfortable， active， positive learning environment and remain this atmosphere through the whole class in order to let students feel comfortable to speak， just like their speaking in ordinary life. Besides， involving students in the design of topics and giving their chance to talk about what they are interested in are still useful in solving speaking reticence. Although they are afraid of speaking but they will subconsciously speak assuming they meet something interesting. Lastly， the improvement of speaking ability is the important and ultimate goal of oral English education. The better they can speak， the more they want to speak， thus in a positive cycle. Overall， the teacher should keep paying attention to the problem of speaking reticence and try to develop useful methodology to maximize learning.

References：

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