IN INTEGRATED COURSE CLASSES
THESIS
Submitted in Partial Fulfillment
of the Requirements for the Degree of
Sarjana Pendidikan
Priscilla Renata Candra Dewi
112008002
ENGLISH DEPARTMENT
FACULTY OF LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE
SATYA WACANA CHRISTIAN UNIVERSITY
SALATIGA
FACTORS CONTRIBUTING TO STUDENTS’ SILENCE
IN INTEGRATED COURSE CLASSES
THESIS
Submitted in Partial Fulfillment
of the Requirements for the Degree of
Sarjana Pendidikan
Priscilla Renata Candra Dewi
112008002
ENGLISH DEPARTMENT
FACULTY OF LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE
SATYA WACANA CHRISTIAN UNIVERSITY
SALATIGA
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Copyrigth@2012. Priscilla Renata Candra Dewi and Nugrahenny T. Zacharias, Ph.D
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Factors Contributing to Students’ Silence in Integrated Course
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FACTORS CONTRIBUTING TO STUDENTS’ SILENCE IN INTEGRATED COURSE (IC) CLASSES
Priscilla Renata Candra Dewi
Abstract
Having seen many peers were in silence during the Integrated Course (IC) class (ED 101), this study aims to explore factors that contribute to
students’ silence. Twenty English Department’s IC students from class year 2012 of Satya Wacana Christian University participated in this study. In-depth interview was the chosen method of the data collection to explore the factors that contribute to students’ silence. To analyze the findings, a descriptive qualitative methodology was used. From the interview, it was found that there were six major influential factors that contribute to the students’ silence in IC classes. Those factors were:
students’ background knowledge, students’ lack of interest, the role of dominating peers, students’ language proficiency, students’ preparedness, and the existence of grading rewards. The result indicated that teachers
needed to create conducive situation to maximize the students’ potentials
in the learning process. This could be done by giving intensive encouragement for the students to be active in class through giving some participation points. Due to the limitation of this study, further researches need to be done to find out other factors, which contribute to the students’ silence, in not only IC classes but also other classes. By having
so many literatures about students’ silence, it is expected that further solution can be found to avoid silence problems in EFL classrooms. Key words: silence, silent, participation, Integrated Course.
Introduction
The purpose of this study is to find out the factors that contribute to students’ silence in Integrated Course classes of English Department of Satya Wacana Christian University. To start with, I would like to make a flash back to show how my background experiences brought an idea to conduct this research. Having experienced taking IC class in my first semester in English Department of Satya Wacana Christian University, I felt that I could be categorized as a silent student. The reason why I kept silent was because I thought that my English proficiency was not as good as my
maximum used of English in IC class made me felt inferior, especially when I found that peers around me spoke English fluently and had better English proficiency than me. As Liu (2005) says, learners in English as Foreign Language (EFL) class were found to be silent while studying the target language and chose not to use it most of the time. I kept silent during the class because I believed that silence is an effective face saving strategy as Tatar (2005) confirmed. Tatar (2005) further describes the face saving strategy as a strategy that the students use to save their own face by keeping their silence in the classroom, since they have fear of making mistakes and being laughed at. Tatar’s statement really described my feeling as a new comer in this faculty.
Students that are categorized as silent students are those who have orientation on themselves, do a little talk or participation (Gonzales, 2010). According to Gonzales, they are not socializing, so, expressing their opinions in doubt and backseats was the most comfortable place for them. In addition, Zhang and Head (2010) supported that
students’ who remain silent are very reluctant to speak in class and would try to sit at
the back of the classroom. When the teacher encourages them to voice their ideas on a topic, they either give limited responses or avoid eye contact with the teacher. Furthermore, Liu (2005) defines silent students as students who are “rarely respond to
teachers’ questions, or rarely take part actively in classroom discussions.” In short,
students who are categorized as silent are they who do not answer the teacher’s questions or do not give their response or opinion when the teacher asks.
failure in language teaching classroom as what Xie (2009) states. Silent students participated hesitantly in classroom activities; they were reluctant to do voluntary replies, reticence to answer, let alone initiate questions, even if they answer, they give brief replies; they seldom speak up about their opinions even if they have one; and they hold back from expressing their views (Xie, 2009). This case also happened during my IC class. Seeing some peers and myself were busy with mobile phones, sometimes
copying other friends’ answers, drawing pictures on the modules, speaking other topics
with peers, and even day dreaming during the teaching and learning process, showed
that students did not really care towards the material delivered. The case of students’
silence and low participation happened not only in certain days but almost in every IC class meeting.
In contrary, there were also active students in my class, as Gonzales (2010) explains, active students are those who are willing to participate in all classroom activities and seeking attention from teachers and peers. I found that those kinds of students wanted to perform well and received appreciation from their friends and teacher. These students also participated in discussions and other co-curricular activities. Although there were no rewards or participation points given to the active students, some of my peers did a lot of participation. They liked to attract teacher’s attention, spoke so many things related to the course, and even dominate the discussion. However, the number of active students was still much lower than the number of silent students. Therefore, this problem attracts my awareness and curiosity on the causes of students’ silence and on the possible solutions to avoid it.
the classroom, either because they are silence learners or because of other reasons. It means that many EFL students feel reluctant to perform their ability to speak English and prefer to remain silent and only listen to what their teachers or classmates say during the lesson as part of their learning strategy. Furthermore, Kumaravadivelu (2003) states that one of the characteristics of Asian EFL students is that they do not like to participate in classroom interaction. This may also happen in IC (ED 101) classrooms. Furthermore, Liu (2005) finds that especially Asian learners, have often been observed to be quiet in language classrooms.
Like what has been stated earlier, facing students with low participation is likely to be a universal problem that may be faced by many teachers. Donald (2010) supports that statement by saying that students’ silence in English, as a second language classroom is a phenomenon that occurs almost in all contexts, regardless of setting. Liu and Jackson (2009) also prove that students’ silence in foreign language classes has long been a challenge for both the teachers and the students themselves. Students with low participation sometimes made the teacher confused and unwilling to continue the teaching. It happened because the teaching and learning process was merely a one-way communication, where the students just listened to what the teacher explained. This situation was just the same as what Ping (2010) says that teachers may face a range of negative feelings such as anxiety, depression, inferiority and loss of confidence associated with low level of participation when dealing with some silent students, and that often make teacher feels upset and frustrated. Thus, it becomes clearer that
students’ silence is truly a problem that should be solved immediately in the EFL
Many experts have been studying the issue of students’ silence. To note one of them, I found that Tatar (2005) examined about classroom participation of international students, which investigated four Turkish students who studied at a United States (U.S) University. One of the important findings of that study stated that the classroom climate
was a major determinant in participants’ experiences of classroom participation besides
other factors such as cultural differences, students’ preparedness, and the role of
peers—whether they are dominating peers or supportive peers (Tatar, 2005). It means that supportive classroom environments facilitated active oral participation, whereas high-anxiety atmospheres increased feelings of isolation that might hinder the students to participate. However, Tatar’s study presented about the participation of international non-native students at a US university, where was dominated by native students. Therefore, I want to know whether the same thing also happen in a context where all of the students are non-native speakers of English, such as in English Department of Satya Wacana Christian University.
Based on the backgrounds stated above, I want to conduct a research to answer
a research question “what are the factors contribute to students’ silence in IC classes?”
By answering this research question, I hope that this study could be beneficial for the field of EFL classroom in the future, in a way that it could be used as references to find
out the underlying factors of students’ silence, so that possible solution to avoid those
Theoretical Framework
Having learned about what students’ silence is from the previous chapter, now
we will focus on the reason why students keep silent during the teaching and learning process.
Reasons behind the Students’ Silence
Many experts say that there were several issues that make the students feel reluctant to participate actively in the classroom. However, only six are discussed in this study.
a. Lack of language proficiency and speaking ability
and Bailey (1991) also support that less proficient learners’ worry that their lack of ability to use the language might be viewed as incompetence to them. This feeling makes the students do not have enough confidence to speak, so they prefer to be silent for the fear of being judged by their peers and teacher as incompetent. This idea will be explained further in the second theme.
b. Fear of making mistakes
The second theme is the fear of making mistake for it may cause humiliation. Students’ silence in EFL classroom could be triggered by the fear of public failure or the fear of making mistakes as Dwyer and Heller-Murphy (1996) conclude. Silent learners in the classroom are often caused by their own worrisome that their lecturers or teachers may judge that their English is poor so that they are afraid of making mistake as Flowerdew et al.(2000) argue. Furthermore, Liu (2005) finds that the unwillingness to involve in class discussion was because of students’ fear of making mistakes, being laughed at and being embarrassed in front of their peers. Students remain silent because of the high risk of making mistakes and appearing foolish (Xiuqin, 2006, p. 36). As a result, students avoided participating in the classroom because they are afraid of making mistakes and avoid any embarrassing situation that could damage their public image (Tanveer, 2007). This silence is preferable than being ashamed in front of their peers.
c. The topic of the lesson
contribute to students’ silence. From this expert’s views, when students feel that the topic being discussed in the classroom is something that they do not know or have little knowledge about, they will feel reluctant to participate actively in the classroom. They prefer to stay silent, to listen to what their teacher or friends say so that they could add more knowledge to participate in the later discussion or merely stay quiet as a strategy to avoid mistakes or humiliation.
d. The role of dominating peers
The fourth factor is the role of dominating peers. Differentiation in opinions or concepts from their peers made students usually keep quiet to avoid direct confrontation (Liu 2005). The fear of dominant peers’ negative evaluation also makes students reluctant to participate (Liu, Zang, & Lu, 2011). In other words, students’ participation in the classroom is highly influenced by their personalities. Those who are brave enough to face challenges and direct confrontation during the teaching and learning process will have no hesitancy to state or even justify their opinion. However, those who do not have enough courage to take risk will maintain their silence as a saving strategy to learn. When it comes to English proficiency, students at a higher level behave more actively than those at a lower level, in various classroom activities and tasks (Liu, 2005).
triggered by the lateness of asking and answering the questions since the active students seems to be quicker in responding to the teacher. Therefore, the existence of dominating peers plays a very big role in contributing to students’ silence.
e. The existence of grading rewards
The seventh factor is reward existence. Liu (2002) finds that pedagogical factors (e.g. participation as a course requirement) contribute to students’ participation in the classroom. In her research, she says that some students only participate in the discussion to meet the requirements set by the teacher. On the other hand, students will not participate or will not answer questions in class when there is no participation point or grade.
From those six factors, we can conclude that there are inner factors as well as
outer factors that contribute to the students’ silence. Most of them are the inner factors
such as students’ speaking ability, students’ fear of making mistakes, students’
unfamiliarity with the topics, and students’ preparation. The two others such as the role
of the dominating peers and the reward existence can be included as the outer factors.
The Study Context of the study
new comers (first year students) as the basic course. According to ED Student Handbook 2008-2009, IC class was aimed to give students a strong foundation in basic language skills to prepare them for higher-level courses. The course materials covered language components; i.e. structure, which was enhanced in the speaking, reading comprehension, vocabulary, and writing sections. Students’ performance in structure, writing, reading comprehension and vocabulary were assessed three times throughout the semester. The intensity of IC classes (four times in a week) might also contribute to
students’ boredom that made them remain silent. Besides, IC could also be considered
the most difficult one because there was a regulation that said that students who have to repeat IC more than twice must be dropped out. From the explanations above, the writer had enough reasons to choose IC classes rather than other classes in the English Department.
Methodology
This research was a descriptive qualitative research. The reason why I employed a descriptive qualitative research was because the research question was broad and need a depth analysis so that the data could be obtained through an interview in which an open-ended question and answer session could be done (Tatar, 2005). Moreover, this research was intended to give a better insight, discovery, and interpretation rather than to test a hypothesis, so that a descriptive qualitative approach was considered better to be implied (Merriam, 2001 as cited in Tatar, 2005).
Participants
the study as well as the accessibility of the researcher to do the interview in a comfortable manner, a sample convenience was used (Mc Kay, 2006). Finally, 20 students were selected randomly from the four groups. In addition, from those 20 participants, 9 participants were male and 11 were female. Pseudonyms were used instead of the real names in order to avoid negative judgment.
IC students were selected by reason that they were new students. They needed to adapt with the new situation, teachers, friends, and materials. They were chosen instead of older class yearby meantthat older class year hadalready accustomed by the teaching style in English Department. The new comers might experience very different teaching styles in their high school compared to the one they had in English Department, so the adaptation moment might cause silence. In addition, IC subject covered all of the basic skills like reading, writing, speaking, and grammar. Not all of students had the same ability on those basic skills, so it might cause silence when they faced the skills that they were lack of ability. Based on those many factors that made them kept on silence, the writer chose these IC students.
Data collection instrument & procedures
the interviewer to ask more questions (follow up questions) to the interviewees. The interview processes were recorded and transcribed for data analysis.
Procedures of data analysis
In analyzing the data, the first step was reading all the transcripts collected from the interview sessions twice. In this step, the statements from each participant during the interview were presented. Then, content analysis according to McKay (2006) was used to analyze and identify the emerging themes (interpreted factors contributing to
students’ silence in IC courses from interview results). Hsieh and Shannon (2005)
proofed that content analysis data was “a research method for the subjective interpretation of the content of text data through the systematic classification process of coding and identifying themes or patterns.”McKay (2006) stated “… overall goal is to arrive at a list of categories that developed data from the data and capture the ideas in
the data” (p. 57). After I categorized the data, I was able to identify the main idea in the
data. By looking at the data, the following themes emerged: students’ background
knowledge, students’ lack of interest, the role of dominating peers, students’ language
proficiency, students’ preparedness, and the existence of grading rewards. Therefore,
the statements would not be mixed and could be divided neatly according to the themes.
Findings and Discussion
After reading and listening to the interview transcription, there were six factors (themes) emerged on why the students kept silent during the IC classes. Those factors were students’ background knowledge, students’ lack of interest, students’ language
proficiency, students’ preparedness, the role of dominating peers, and the existence of
a. Students’ background knowledge
Six participants, Esterly, Barbie, Mels, Rudy, Tanosapoetro, and Immanuel (pseudonyms) answered that background knowledge was important when they wanted to participate. Their lack of background knowledge in class made them felt embarrassed, especially if they were asked to give response or opinions. They did not want to talk too much in class with non-sense ideas. The idea could be seen as revealed in the extract below:
I would participate if I already understood about the topic being discussed.
Honestly, I liked to share and discussed my idea s, opinions, and knowledge
with my teachers and friends. However, if I did not know about the topic, it
wa s better for me to keep silent rather than talking about non-sense ideas. In
addition, if the materials were difficult to understand, it made me reluctant
to participate. (Esterly’s answer, my translation)
From those statements stated by one of the students above, we could notice that even a student who was willing to participate might step back if he/she did not have any background knowledge about the topic being discussed. It proved that active students could suddenly turn silent if they felt that their knowledge about the lesson being presented in the classroom was not sufficient.
In addition, another student, Freddy, said that he often found some difficult part but he did not have courage to ask the teacher so he chose to keep silent. He sometimes felt empty and did not know what to do so he was reluctant to participate. Students’ inability to understand concepts that the teacher taught can make them silent in class.
This idea was supported by Liu’s (2005). In line with Liu, Bacha, Bahous, and Nabhani
are often demotivated to learn.” In conclusion, the discussion topics really influence on
students’ participations. As what Lee and Ng (2009) stated, situational variables such as
certain topic in which the students were less or more knowledgeable, might influence
students’ participation in the classroom. Particularly, silent students would tend to step
back and remain unseen from the teacher and their peers.
b. Students’ lack of interest
Other factors related to the cause of students silence is students’ lack of interest in the topic discussed in the classroom. Interesting topic can make students want to understand and participate more. Freddy, Eisari, Kevin and Nunung (pseudonyms) believed that interesting topic could attract students to pay attention and participate more. However, they would keep silent when the topic did not make them interested. Below are comments from Nunung to illustrate how interesting topics really influenced him to participate:
If I am interested in the topic being discussed, I would involve in the
discussion. Interesting topic made me want to know deeper. So, I would ask
some questions to my friends or my teacher to answer my curiosity. Also, I felt
enthusiasic in doing the activities related to the topic. On the contrary, when I
found a boring or repeated topic, I choose to keep silent or focus on others
(for example, playing in my mobile phone or laptop, dra wing on handbook or
talking with friends, etc) (Nunung’s answer, my translation)
From the participants’ statements above, it could be concluded that students
lecturing, so he was easy to get bored. Students’ boredom, which was caused by the low level of interest they had toward certain topic made them perform non academically, such as playing with mobile phones, doodling on the paper, or chatting with friends.
From the explanation above, we can see that not every student who is quiet in class can be categorized as silent students. A situational condition may influence the
students’ participation in the classroom, such as their interest toward particular topic or
lesson. Another noteworthy statement that could be derived from the student’s extract above was about the teacher’s way of teaching that might influence the level of interest that they had in the particular class. In this sense, avoiding repeated topic and using the different teaching method for the whole meeting in one intended course could also be seen as a way to prevent students’ silence.
From the first theme and the second theme above, we can see that the topic presented in the classroom played important roles in students’ participation. As Tatar (2005) explained, positive attitude could be developed when the students already understood the topic, which means that the students are familiar with and have sufficient background about the topic, so that they can participate more actively in the classroom. Furthermore, Tatar also supports that lack of understanding of the materials could make them silent because when students participated they might think that their ideas were irrelevant. In addition, interesting topic can also improve student’s participation in class. Thus, from the first two themes above, we can conclude that
students’ familiarity, background knowledge, and interest toward whatever presented in
c. Students’ language proficiency
In this theme, two students were found being silent because of their language proficiency problems. Liu and Kuo (1996) who states, “Spoken English proficiency and knowledge of subject matters were the most influential factors contributing to a
student’s speaking up in class,” support it. Liu (2005) also found as same as Liu and
Kuo (1996) as “students remain silent in class, especially the students with low English
proficiency. They fear of making mistakes and being laughed at, and lack of familiarity
with partners and the environment,”
For those reasons, Ielha and Jemmy (pseudonym) said that they were reluctant to participant since they believe that their English speaking ability was not good. They explained that they were not so fluent in speaking English, but they understood enough basic vocabularies, singular and plural, nouns, animals, colors, family members, etc. Jemmy and Ielha’s answers below described why they kept silent during the class:
Having a wareness that my English wa s not as good as my friends’, silence
wa s the best way to sa ve my face. I did not take any participation because I
wa s shy and afraid of my friends’ mocking at me when I made mistakes. It
wa s very embarrassing to me. Therefore, I think that to keep on silence wa s
the best conditions for me rather than to have my friends laugh at my bad
English. (Ielha’s answer, my translation)
obvious that students at lower level English proficiency behaved more passively than the higher level in various classroom activities, as Xie (2009) found. From this finding, it could be concluded that if the students kept their beliefs that efforts to participate should be decreased for the reason of their fear toward humiliation, students with low proficiency would not develop as rapidly as those with high proficiency. Having known this situation, students with low proficiency had to change their beliefs and participated more actively to achieve higher proficiency levels.
d. Students’ preparedness
The next theme was students’ preparedness. Preparedness before the class also played an important role when the students wanted to participate. Tatar (2005) explained that reading the assigned materials, preparing notes and questions relevant to
the next day’s material were included in preparation. Preparation before the class made
the students felt confidence when they wanted to ask questions and answer teacher’s questions. She also wrote that preparation helped student to reduce anxiety. The same
as Tatar, Liu (2005) also stated that, “It was also found that incomprehensible input and
lack of preparation before coming to the class contributed to the students’ reticence in
the classroom.”
Diamond (pseudonym), stated that preparation really affected her participation. She chose to keep silent when she did not prepare anything for the class. Below is the comment by Diamond to express her feeling when she did not do any preparation before the class:
If I did not prepare the materials for the next da y’s class, for example I did
not do the exercises, read the passages, search in the dictionary for the
background knowledge about the materials, I would just kept on silent in
class. In addition, preparation made me ready to answer and confidence
enough anytime the teacher pointed me to answer a question. The teacher
may felt that I paid attention to the discussion when my answer wa s right.
(Diamond’s answer, my translation)
Furthermore, Diamond explained that when she came to class without sufficient preparation she would easily lost her concentration. Sometimes, in her opinion, the teacher discussed the material too fast. Preparation made her felt that she was not left behind. Then, preparedness made her ready to answer whenever teacher pointed her. It was support by Tatar (2005), who said that preparation took important roles, for both
learning process and students’ self-confidence. She added that the students did not feel
comfortable enough when expressing their ideas without doing careful thinking and preparation to assess their content value in advance. Therefore, for some students like Diamond, preparation was important since it gave them better self-confidence to participate actively in the classroom activities.
From the extract above, we could see that students’ initial preparation before the
class could give additional background knowledge to the students about what would be taught in the classroom. When the students felt that their preparation was adequate, they felt ready with all possibilities that might happen in the classroom, such as answering
the teacher’s questions, presenting opinions about certain topics, etc. It could be
concluded that the students’ initial preparation had a close relationship with the first
e. The role of dominating peers
When the first four themes discussed about the inner factors from the students that might contribute to their silence in the class, the last two themes dealt with the outer factors. The fifth theme was the existence of dominating peers that influenced
students’ participation. Mawar, Ani, and Ordinary Boy (pseudonym) felt afraid of being
attacked and insulted by clever, active, and dominant peers. They also did not want
their peers considered them as showed off when they replied those active peers’ answer
(Jackson, 2002 and Miller & Aldred, 2000). Tatar (2005) in her research found that students tended to keep quiet while facing the other students who were more active and aggressive in participation behavior. The participants had the same idea about their dominant peers. The dominant peers were usually sat down in the front rows, with their groups (the same active students) and dominated the discussion. They also felt that
teacher’s attention only focused on them. As a result, they thought that it was useless to
try to become active since they had a feeling that the teacher would ignore their effort. Mawar (pseudonym) confessed that she was a passive student. She did not like to participate in any class. She did not have enough confidence to express her opinion. However, she felt that the teacher only focused his/her attention towards active students who usually sat in the front rows. She said that a teacher had to be fair to all of his/her students. As she mentioned, one day she intended to participate in the class discussion and sat in back seat. Unfortunately, when she tried to answer by raising her hand, the teacher did not see her. As the result, she was a little disappointed not only with the active students (who did not give chances to the other friends) but also with the teacher who she thought was not fair to other students. The comment below was Mawar
I wa s quite uncomfortable with the existence of dominating peers. When I
felt one of my friend wa s clever or active one, I thought he/she liked to be
heard and did not want to listen to the other friends’ opinion. I thought
she/he always tried to attract teacher’s attention all the time. As a result, the
teacher also only focused on him/her and ignored other students. I also felt
and found that that kind of friend did not like other friend pa rticipate
actively. I thought keep silent wa s the best way for me. (Ma war, my
translation)
Similar with Mawar, Ani also felt uncomfortable with the active peers’
existence. She usually checked the class condition first before she decided to participate. She experienced if there was active peers in class, they liked to cut off,
question, or argue other’s students respond. Ani felt that they did not want other friends
participate actively and it seemed that they could not appreciate different point of views. They wanted to be the one and only active student to attract the teacher’s attention. What Ani stated in her opinion about the existence of active peers was written as follow:
If my peers already dominated the discussion, I would not take any
participation. I would keep on silence because I was afraid of being attacked
or debated by her. Although she was a clever student, it wa s too arrogant to
attack other friends’ answer. However, if my friends had the same
intelligence as me, maybe I would give some opinions. (Ani, my translation)
It proved that some students tended to measure their ability fist and then
compared to their friends’ abilities before they participated in the classroom discussion.
They considered it as a saver strategy rather than simply participated in the discussion,
supports Morgenstern (1992) who also found so many chances for students to
participate actively, but only certain students’ domination found in the discussion
supports their feeling.
Meanwhile, Ordinary Boy (pseudonym) also said that if there was already active member who participated in class, he chooses to keep silent. Although he liked to participate actively in group or pair discussion, he liked being silent rather than being seen that he wanted to compete with the active friends, like he added below :
I found out if there was already peer who dominate my class, I choose to
keep silent. But if there is no friends who a re a ctive in class, I try to be
active by answering my teacher’s questions and giving my opinion.
However, I only participated some times, not every time like active student
usually did. (Ordinary Boy’s answer, my translation)
What Mawar, Ani, and Ordinary Boy feeling was supported by Tartar (2005) who described active students as talkative, usually spoke and delivered their personal opinions without considering the others existence. Dominating peers did not seem to give a chance to other friends to involve in the discussion. The participants often found that their dominating peers tended to cut off other speakers so the teacher’s attention returned to them. Jackson (2002); Liu and Littlewood (1997) also found that lack of opportunity to use English for communicative purposes could cause students’ silence. Therefore, to avoid social contact or confrontation with such students, become silent is common as the best strategy used by the participants, like what Tatar (2005) proofed.
f. The existence of grading rewards
Besides the roles of dominating peers, rewards existence also influenced the
students when they participated actively in the classroom, such as when students answered the teachers’ questions, presented opinions, or even asked questions to the teacher. Debora (pseudonym) argued that teacher should give a grading reward to student who participated actively or answered the teacher’s questions. Tatar (2005) on her research also said that some of the instructor found the advantageous in grading participation in terms of forcing students to prepare and participate. As it was found from Debora’s comments below :
As far as I know, there was no participation point in IC class. Therefore,
there was no obligation to participate so that some students felt that they did
not need to participate in class. If there were pa rticipation point, I would
involve in discussion. I felt that without extra points, there wa s no difference
between active and passive students. In my point of view, participation
without participation grade was useless. (Debora’s answer, my translation) The excerpt above showed how grading rewards existence really motivated the
students’ participation. Students felt that their preparation, ability, and effort were
improve themselves and get better grades. As the final analysis, reward existence was
really needed to increase student’s participations and to reduce anxiety during the
learning process.
Conclusion and Pedagogical Implication
To summarize the whole findings and to answer the research questions on “what factors contribute to students silence in IC classes?” this section presented the findings on factors that contribute to students’ silence in Integrated Course (ED 101) in English Department of Satya Wacana Christian University. This study found that there were six
major factors contributing to students’ silence, they were: students’ background
knowledge, students’ lack of interest, students’ language proficiency, students’
preparedness, the role of dominating peers, and the existence of grading rewards. Brief summary of the six findings were described as follow.
First, the level of background knowledge that the students had toward certain topics or lessons being presented in the classroom (whether they have sufficient, more, or less amount of knowledge) gave a contribution on why they kept silent during the teaching and learning process. Lack of understanding toward the materials could be a factor that contributes to students’ silence because they did not have confidence to participate. Facing unfamiliar topic or materials made them thought that their ideas might be irrelevant. Students were reluctant to participate when they did not have background knowledge about the learning materials.
On the other hand, participants believed that interesting topic could attract students to pay attention and participate more during their learning process (Tatar, 2005). One
noteworthy finding that was found related to the students’ lack of interest was the fact
that even an active students would feel reluctant to participate if the they had no interest toward the topics, materials, or the whole lesson. Therefore, it could be said that
students’ lack of interest was a situational factor that might influence certain students to
keep silent.
Third, students’ silence was also the result of students’ low level of language proficiency. It was because students’ English proficiency was one of the most
influential factors contributing to students’ silence (Liu and Kuo, 1996). Having low
proficiency made the not too fluent English speakers felt reluctant to express their ideas. As a result, they feared of losing face, afraid of being mocked and laughed at, especially when they made grammatical errors. They also feared that others would contempt their bad English. Therefore, they chose to keep silent rather than embarrassed themselves. It was a face saving strategy, which they used in the classroom (Tatar, 2005).
Fourth, students’ preparedness before the class also played an important role
when the students wanted to participate. Tatar (2005) explained that reading the
assigned materials, preparing notes and questions relevant to the next day’s material
were included in preparation. In this study, it was found that preparation in advance made the students felt confidence when they wanted to ask questions or answered the
teacher’s questions. In addition, preparation also helped the student to reduce anxiety
The first four findings above were included as the inner factors that contribute
to the existence of students’ silence. The last two findings below indicated the opposite,
which were the outer factors that contributed to students’ silence.
Fifth, the role of dominating peers also contributed to the low level of students’ participation. It was found that students felt afraid of being attacked, ignored and insulted by certain friends who were considered as clever or active students, those who tended to be dominant. One important finding under this theme was the result that showed how the teacher’s role also contributed in the existence of dominating peers since the teacher had tendencies to only focus his/her attention toward active students who usually sat in the front rows. This condition made some students remained silent because they felt that no matter how big their effort was to participate, the teacher would not pay attention to them. The silent students also tried to avoid social confrontation with the dominating peers since they were considered cleverer and more knowledgeable so, the silent students feared of the confrontation.
The last finding stated that the inexistence of grading rewards made the students felt reluctant to participate in the classroom. They felt that it was useless for them for there was no difference whether they participate of not. Tatar (2005) stated that the presence of grading rewards was advantageous to encourage participation. Students felt that their preparation, ability, and effort were appreciated. Grading rewards were proved to improve student’s participation, enthusiasm, and attention during the teaching learning process.
From all of the findings presented above, it showed that the existence of
students’ silence in English classroom was caused by many factors. It was not only
influenced by students inner factors such as students’ background knowledge, students’
but also from outer factors such as the role of dominating peers, and the existence of grading rewards. Here, teachers played important role, as the class leader, in which he/she should be able to create conducive situation to maximize the students’ potentials in the learning process. In addition, the students should be given intensive encouragement to be active in class by giving more chance to speak. For example, the teacher was required to be creative when delivering the materials, encourage students to join actively in class activity, and give additional points for the active participants. The most important one, as Tatar (2005) said, that teacher had to encourage students to be brave to take risk and make mistakes while speaking.
A supportive relationship among students in class was also important to be built by the teacher. It could make students felt free to share ideas and supported other students to speak up in IC class instead of competing one another each other in a negative sense. Students could work hard on their vocabularies and tenses and desired to support each other to speak actively in English classroom. As a result, they might not become so afraid of losing face in front of peers but become more willing to participate in class participation.
However, due to its limitation, this present study was not perfect and needed to be improved in certain aspects. Further research needs to be done to explore for
students’ strategies, in order to help students to reduce and even eliminate their silence
in EFL classroom context. It is expected that this study can give contribution in the field of EFL classrooms in terms of providing solution to the emerging problem of
Acknowledgements
The biggest thank goes to the Almighty God for blessing and giving me strength to finish my thesis. In addition, during my thesis writing, I would not be possible to finish it without all of the people around me. Thank you for all of your prayers, helps, supports, and encouragements.
I would also express my gratitude for the guidance from my supervisor, Victoria Usadya Palupi, MA-ELT and Nugrahenny T. Zacharias, Ph.D, who were so helpful and gave valuable assistance, support, and guidance. I also want to deliver my gratitude to my examiner, Anita Kurniawati, M. Hum, thank you for providing your time to examine my thesis.
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Interview Questions
1. Sebutkanlah bagaimana kepribadianmu!
2. Kamu termasuk mahasiswa yang aktif atau pendiam kalau di kelas IC? 3. Bagaimana kemampuanmu berbicara Bahasa Inggris? Jelaskan jawabanmu! 4. Bagaimana perasaanmu ketika temanmu aktif berpartisipasi dalam percakapan di
kelas IC?
5. Apa pendapatmu tentang kemampuan teman-temanmu di kelas bahasa inggris? Jelaskan jawabanmu!
6. Apa yang kamu lakukan saat kamu tidak dapat mengemukakan pendapat dalam Bahasa Inggris?
7. Saat kamu diam, apakah itu artinya kamu tidak dapat berbicara dalam Bahasa Inggris, atau ada faktor lain? Sebutkan dan jelaskan faktor tersebut!
8. Apa yang kamu lakukan saat dosenmu menawarkan untuk menjawab pertanyaan/mengemukakan pendapat secara sukarela?
9. Factor-faktor apa sajakah yang mempengaruhimu untuk berpartisipasi atau sekedar diam saja? Mengapa?
