Luận văn thạc sĩ exploring non english major students’ and teachers’ perceptions of silence in tertiary EFL classrooms in vietnam

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.A. MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: English Teaching Methodology
Code: 8140231.01

HÀ NỘI - 2020

i


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


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


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


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

TABLE OF CONTENTS
DECLARATION .............................................................................................................i
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ......................................................................................... iii
ABSTRACT ...................................................................................................................iv
LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES ............................................................................. v
CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION ................................................................................. 1
1.1.

Statement of the problem and the rationale for the study .......................... 1

1.2.

Aims and objectives of the study .................................................................... 2

1.3.

Research questions .......................................................................................... 2

1.4.

Significance of the study ................................................................................. 2

1.5.

Scope of the study ............................................................................................ 3

1.6.

Organization of the study ............................................................................... 3

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW ..................................................................... 4
2.1.

Interaction in EFL classrooms ....................................................................... 4

2.2.

Factors relating to the effectiveness of EFL classroom interaction ............ 4

2.3.

Silence phenomenon during classroom interaction ..................................... 5

2.4.

Perception of students’ silence in classroom interactions ........................... 6

2.4.1. Teachers‟ perception of students‟ silence ...................................................... 6
2.4.2. Students perceptions of students‟ silence ...................................................... 7
2.5.

Related studies on silence in classroom interaction and research gap ....... 7

CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY ................................................................................ 9
3.1.

Research participants...................................................................................... 9

vi

3.1.1. The selection of participants .......................................................................... 9
3.1.2. Descriptions of the participants ..................................................................... 9
3.2.

Data collection instruments .......................................................................... 10

3.2.1. Observation and audio-visual recording ...................................................... 10
3.2.2. Video stimulated recall interview ................................................................ 11
3.2.3. Semi-structured interview............................................................................ 12
3.3.

Data collection procedure ............................................................................. 12

3.4.

Data analysis methods and procedure ......................................................... 14

CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION ........................................................ 16
4.1.

Students’ perception of silence ..................................................................... 16

4.2.

Teachers’ perception of students’ silence.................................................... 29

CHAPTER V: CONCLUSION ................................................................................... 41
5.1.

Summary of major findings ......................................................................... 41

5.2.

Implications of the research ......................................................................... 42

5.3.

Limitations of the research ........................................................................... 43

5.4.

Suggestions for further studies ..................................................................... 44

REFERENCES ............................................................................................................. 45
APPENDICES .............................................................................................................. 49

vii



CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION
1.1.

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


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.

1.2.

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
1.3.

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?
1.4.

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


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.
1.5.

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.
1.6.

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.

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CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1.

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. 3). 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.
2.2.

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


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. Overall, it
can be seen that the effectuality of classroom interaction might be affected by
numerous factors, which means that these factors might contribute to create or inhibit
classroom interaction under different circumstances. This requires EFL teachers, who
control classroom communication patterns (Walsh, 2011), to sensitively interpret and
recognize potential influential factors in order to provide necessary conditions for
effective interaction in EFL classrooms.
2.3.

Silence phenomenon during classroom interaction

Silence, according to Walsh (2011), is one part of classroom interaction together
with teacher talk and pupil talk. This phenomenon is defined and interpreted in a
variety of ways. On the one hand, some researchers regard students‟ silence in class as
a negative way of responding to teachers (Han, 2016) and an obstruction or a threat to
the effectiveness of the language learning process (King, 2013; Yu, 2016). Silence is

also believed to indicate the lack or limitation of participation in classroom interactions
(White & Smith, 1996). On the other hand, in certain studies, students‟ refraining from
talk can be considered as a way of participating in the lessons. According to Jaworski
and Sachdev (1998), silence might be considered as “a positive communicative item”
and it enables learners to “gain access, organize and absorb new material” (p. 286).
Sharing the same viewpoint, Schultz (2012) stated that silence might facilitate
students‟ thinking and learning process by giving them time to think and revise what
they have learned. Therefore, silence of learners in class is neither necessarily negative
nor a sign of students‟ being nonparticipating in the lessons.
During classroom interaction, silence is formed when “a gap occurs between a
teacher‟s expectation of a response and the time that the respondent takes to respond”
5


(Bista, 2012, p. 77). The silence of students is commonly demonstrated in English class
when the students do not response to the teachers‟ questions (Yu, 2016). Additionally,
silence is also noticed when the students, named “silent participants” (Remedios,
Clark, & Hawthorne, 2008), only speak with limited short utterance, rarely raise
questions and even do not participate in discussions and debates. In general, the silence
in communication between teacher and students can be understood as “the lack of oral
participation and verbal responsiveness” (King, 2013, p. 2) on the parts the learners
when they are expected to speak or respond to the teacher.
2.4.

Perception of students’ silence in classroom interactions

People‟s perceptions of silence, as stated by Spencer-Oatey and Xing (2005),
depends on their expectation during intercultural communication. Johannesen (1974)
believed that native American and Asian cultures put silence on a higher value position
compared to Western cultures. In certain previous research, silence was perceived from

socio-cultural perspectives. As mentioned in Bao (2014), students‟ choice to keep
silent or talk are related to their “judgment of the socio-educational surroundings” (p.
147). Hu and Fell-Eisenkraft (2003) also explained students‟ silence in relation to
social and cultural aspects of learners in language arts classrooms from the view of an
insider. Remedios, Clark and Hawthorne (2008) explored that learners choose to keep
silent because of “personal, contextual and cultural” constraints (p. 213). Learners were
also found to use silence as a face-saving strategy, and silence was also a manifestation
of collectivism culture traits because they want to show their appreciation and respect
to other students‟ talks (Wilang, 2017).
2.4.1. Teachers’ perception of students’ silence

From teachers‟ perspectives, students‟ silence might be a negative phenomenon
if they construe it with cultural bias in intercultural teaching contexts as stated in Ollin
(2008). Teachers were found to perceive silence as disengagement if they use
“conventional understandings” (Bista, 2012, p. 81). According to Bao (2014), teachers
and academics tend to think of silence as a sign of reticence instead of a learning mode.
6


On the contrary, teachers were found, in Ollin (2008, p. 272), to interpret silence
positively as an indication of learners‟ engagement in “internal activity” such as
“listening, cognitively processing, emotionally processing, emotionally withdrawing”,
or as a sign of learners‟ process of receiving and producing language knowledge
(Nakane, 2007).
2.4.2. Students perceptions of students’ silence

In the perceptions of students, silence constitutes a chance for them to
effectively prepare for their talk and to link new information with their existing
knowledge (Bao, 2014). Learners also did not regard verbal silence as the lack of
cognitive participation but they also used it as a tool for showing their disagreement

with teacher‟s use of graded participation (Meyer & Hunt, 2011) and their passive
protest or dissatisfaction with teachers‟ teaching methods or authority without losing
face (King, 2013). According to King (2013), students perceived remaining silent as a
“risk-free” option for them to show respect to the instructor. On the other hand,
Japanese student participants in King (2013)‟s research were found to be intolerant or
not comfortable with other students‟ silence or non-responsiveness to teacher‟s
questions.
As a whole, the perceptions of silence vary from contexts to contexts and “from
culture to culture” (Johannesen, 1974, p. 27). Thus, such phenomenon in classrooms
may be considered to positively or negatively influence teaching and learning by both
teachers and students. Consequently, an investigation into the perspectives of
Vietnamese non-English major students and their teachers on students‟ silence in EFL
classrooms is bound to shed light on such appealing topic in education in the context of
Vietnam.
2.5.

Related studies on silence in classroom interaction and research gap

There have been a number of studies on the topic of silence in classroom
interaction. For instance, Ghavamniaa and Ketabia (2013) explored reasons behind
Iranian female students‟ silence using interview and questionnaires. Han (2016) also
7


found out factors relating to Chinese students‟ silence such as face-saving strategies,
learning motivation, personalities or language input and output as well as some
strategies to deal with students‟ silence.
Focusing on the perceptions of silence in classrooms, Nakane (2007)
emphasized the performance and perceptions of silence in an intercultural
communication context. The researcher utilized questionnaire for lecturers, classroom

observation and stimulated recall interview for three Japanese students. Next, King
(2013) carried out a research on silence in classrooms of different Japanese universities
with the use of observation and semi-structured interviews. The researcher listed five
conceptions of silence and the perspectives of students on silence in L2 classrooms
including using silence as a passive protest against teacher‟s teaching, silence with the
fear of losing face and silence as a preferred phase in cliques. However, the above
studies were conducted in the context of Japan and they did not compare the
perspectives of both teachers and students about silence in EFL classrooms.
Bao (2014) conducted a series of research on silence of students from different
countries consisting of Vietnam. The researcher found that Vietnamese master
students‟ silence functions to support the output, and it was based on their “judgment
of the socio-educational surroundings” (p. 147). The master students in this study, who
were considered to have “fairly advanced intellectual maturity” (p. 146), chose to keep
silent if they believe speaking up “academically unhelpful or socially unpleasant” (p.
147) or if their peers are not supportive. However, this research only focuses on
Vietnamese students at master level. Conducting a study on Vietnamese
undergraduates using questionnaire and diaries, Nguyen (2015) found out subjective
causes namely learners‟ psychology and proficiency, and objective reasons including
teacher, subject‟s contents and classmates that led to students‟ silence. Thus, an
investigation into the perceptions of teachers and non-English major students in
Vietnam about students‟ silence in English class by using observation, retrospective
interviews and focus group interview is expected to address the research gap in the
literature of this topic.
8


HAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY

3.1.

Research participants
3.1.1. The selection of participants

Since students‟ silence in English classrooms from the perspectives of teachers
and non-English major students was identified as the subject of this study, non-English
major students from four General English classes and their four English teachers were
selected as participants. Four teachers allowed the researcher to observe their class and
video-record their lessons. Three out of four English teachers and eight students agreed
to participate in the retrospective and semi-structured interviews.
3.1.2. Descriptions of the participants

4.1.1. a, Descriptions of participants in observations
Table 3.1 and 3.2 below illustrate the descriptions of 95 participants in
observations including 4 English teachers and 91 students of four classes. All the
names of the participants listed are pseudonyms.
Table 3.1: The Descriptions of English Teachers in Observations
No
1
2
3
4

Teacher
Teacher Minh
Teacher Nhung
Teacher Hien
Teacher Anh

Age
43

36
33
48

Gender
Female
Female
Female
Female

Table 3.2: The Descriptions of Students in Observations
No
1
2
3
4

Class
Class 1
Class 2
Class 3
Class 4

Number of students Number of males
19
5
26
23
26
20

20
14
9

Number of females
14
3
6
6


4.1.2. b, Descriptions of participants in interviews
Table 3.3 and 3.4 below show the descriptions of the students and teachers who
volunteered to take part in the interviews.
Table 3.3: The Descriptions of Students in Interviews
No

Name

Gender

Teacher

1

An

Female

Anh

2

Binh

Male

Minh

3

Chi

Female

Minh

4

Duong

Female

Minh

5

Dao

Female

Minh

6

Phan

Male

Nhung

7

Giang

Male

Nhung

8

Hoa

Female

Hien

Table 3.4: The Descriptions of Teachers in Interviews
No

Teacher

Years of teaching

Gender

1

Teacher Minh

22

Female

2

Teacher Nhung

9

Female

3

Teacher Hien

12

Female

3.2.

Data collection instruments
3.2.1. Observation and audio-visual recording

Observation is believed to provide researchers data from various situations and
help to investigate into the things which participants do not feel free to talk about
(Cohen, Manion & Morrison, 2000). Acknowledging these advantages, the researcher
employed class observation method to attain a comprehensive picture of the situation.
A camera was used to record the interactions among class members so that the
10


researcher might finish observation notes with more details when necessary. The data
gained from this observation was used to support for the retrospective interview
procedure and for the analysis of interview data.
To help the students and the teachers get used to the presence of the researcher
during the lessons, the researcher came to visit the classes in two lessons in advance
and spent time talking with the students and the teachers before officially starting the
data collection process of class observation.
Before video recording the lessons, the research had a “dry-run” session. A
“dry-run”, as stated in O‟ Brien (1993), is the lesson in which students and teachers
get familiar with the presence of camera in their class. Hence, the video recording
those “dry-run” lessons were not used as data. It was observed after “dry-run” lessons,
the atmosphere of the class became more natural despite the presence of the camera.
Hence, the data from the video recorder was expected to be more reliable.
3.2.2. Video stimulated recall interview

Stimulated recall interview is a technique that requires interviewees to
reconstruct events in the classroom that are captured on the videotapes (Clarke, 2001).

In this kind of interview, the interviewer allows interviewees to watch a video
recording their behaviors and reflect on their thinking process during those events
(Nguyen, McFadden, Tangen & Beutel, 2013). The students‟ thinking process when
they were silent during the English lessons was probed through retrospective
interviews with the help of videotapes capturing previous English lessons. Besides,
teachers‟ perspectives on students‟ silence during those periods were expressed when
teachers were watching the videos of the lessons again.
A number of questions for stimulated recall interviews suggested by Gass and
Mackey (2000) were utilized. Those questions were raised by the researcher when the
interviewees stopped the video or when the researcher wanted to ask the students at
certain episodes. The questions are listed below:
 “What were you thinking here/at this point?”
11


 “Can you tell me what you were thinking at that time?”
 “Do you remember thinking anything when she said/repeated that?”
 “Can you remember what you were thinking when she said that/those word(s)?”
 “Can you tell me what you thought when the class was totally silent at that
time?”
The questions used for asking teachers are listed below:
 “What were you thinking here/at that point?”
 “Can you tell me what you were thinking when you looked at that student?”
 “Do you remember what you were thinking when that student/the class did not
respond to your questions?”
3.2.3. Semi-structured interview

Semi-structured interviews were also employed as a follow-up after the above
two data collection methods had been applied. The debriefing sections were conducted
to discuss further the perceptions of participants on silence phenomenon in order to

have more valuable answers to the two research questions. A written list of questions
was used, as recommended by Mackey and Gass (2005), as a guide for researchers to
investigate more about the participants‟ perspectives on silent periods in class. The
interviews were in the form of informal talks and were audio-recorded.
3.3.

Data collection procedure

The procedure of data collection in this study had the following phases:
Phase 1: Preparation
In this phase, necessary documents and instruments for the study were designed, such as:


Observation scheme



Consent form for interviews and observations



Semi-structured interview questions



Stimulated recall instructions for the interviewees
12




Camera & audio recorder
In addition, the researcher contacted the Faculty of Foreign Studies at the

university chosen and all targeted students and teachers in the General English course
to ask for their permission to conduct the study and record their lessons. Besides, the
days for the observations were scheduled appropriately for all participants and the
researcher.
Phase 2: Observation and audio-visual recording
In this phase, the English lessons of classes in the General English courses were
observed. During the lessons, a camera was used for video recording all the
interactions of the class. Key information relating to silence and some students who
appear to be silent during the lessons were noted down in a designed observation form.
Phase 3: Video-stimulated recall interview
To prepare for this phase, after each lesson, the researcher tried to approach the
silent students noted in the observation form and invited them to take part in
retrospective interviews. Besides, the teachers were also invited to participate in this
phase. The interviews were conducted as soon as possible to make sure that the
interviewees, who were the voluntary teachers and students, still remembered what had
happened during the lessons.
During the interview, videotapes from the camera were used as stimuli. The
researcher reminded the interviewees about the research‟s objectives, instructed the
participants and announced the confidentiality of the data gained. Subsequently, the
researcher and interviewees watched the videos together. While watching the video, the
interviewees were encouraged to describe their thoughts during the lessons and
sometimes researchers asked interviewees questions about certain moments when they
were silent in those lessons. These debriefing sections were carried out in Vietnamese
language to ensure that the participants did not have any difficulties in expressing their
thoughts. The interviews were recorded and then, transcribed.

13


Phase 4: Semi-structured interview
Semi-structured interviews with a number of voluntary students were conducted
after the three phases to get further information to construe silence phenomenon. In this
phase, a list of semi-structured interview questions was utilized.
The Figure 3.1 below outlines this study‟s data collection procedure:

Figure 3.1: Phases in data collection procedure
3.4.

Data analysis methods and procedure

The data collected from observation and interviews including interview
transcripts and notes from observation was analyzed qualitatively using qualitative data
analysis techniques suggested by Miles and Huberman (1992). The technique‟s steps
were data reduction, data display, interpretation and conclusion drawing. Any parts of
the transcripts and notes that were not relevant to the topic of silence during classroom
interaction were set aside. Afterwards, the remaining data from Vietnamese-version
transcriptions were translated into English for quotations in the presentation of
findings. The data was coded according to themes and the results were presented to
answer the two research questions.

14


Based on the related literature, silence was related to a number of factors. The
following table 3.5 shows the classification of different factors relating to silence
which was used in this study as the coding scheme:

Factors relating to silence

Code

Learning style

LS

Learning habit

LH

Learning mode

LM

Personal factors (characteristics, personal problems)

PF

Cultural factors (power distance, collectivism)

CF

Face-saving strategy

FS

Reticence

R

Boredom

B

Limited competence

LC

Environmental factors (teachers, peers)

LE

Table 3.5: The coding scheme

15


CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION
4.1.

Students’ perception of silence

During teacher-student interaction in the observed classroom lessons, the
students kept silent in most of the class time. Most of them did not say anything to
respond to the teacher and even did not look at their teacher once during their lesson.
Instead, they chose to look at their books, notebooks or at their phones on the table.
When being asked by the researcher about what they were thinking in silent moments
shown on the video, students shared different reasons why they kept silent and the

factors associated with their silence were also investigated.
Based on what was revealed by the students, students‟ silence in this study
could be classified into two contrastive types that are active silence and inactive
silence. Active silence will be used to describe the moments when the students actively
choose to say nothing when they are in their learning mode, or it is their learning habit
or learning style, or because keeping silent is their characteristics. Students use active
silent so they can have time to process the information given or acquire new
knowledge and feel comfortable with such silent moments. This means that they are
involved in the learning process silently but positively and productively. In contrast,
inactive silence are the moments when students keep silent under the influence of
different factors which inhibit them from orally participating in the lessons. These
factors might relate to culture, learning environment, anxiety, limited competence or
other factors.
4.1.1. Active silence

Six out of eight interviewed students revealed that they were silent for learning
purposes. First, learners kept silent in order to mentally process the given information
such as reading to understand the learning materials or preparing for their answers. In
the observed lesson, when the teacher asked the whole class about the sport they
learned to play at school, no student responded and Giang was silently looking at his

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book and showed no responsive action to his teacher. In the retrospective interview,
Giang talked about his silent moment:
I was thinking about the answer but I did not know how to say. I
was trying to answer with a full sentence including subject and
predicate instead of just saying a sport name.
In this situation, Giang did understand the question and already had the answer

for it; however, he still remained silent as he was trying to make a complete sentence in
the target language instead of saying one word to answer. The silent moments here did
not mean that the student was not concentrating on learning and in fact, he was trying
to improve his own answer.
In the same situations in another class when no student responded to the teacher,
An shared that:
I was thinking about the discussion. I mean I was thinking about
the ideas in Vietnamese first, then I translated it into English.
[…] I was wondering what is the answer.
[…] I was preparing for the answer
Similarly, Duong also said that she spent her silent time for preparing what she
should say. She said that she knew what the teacher asked for but she could not find
out the way to speak immediately. She was thinking about the way to translate her
ideas from Vietnamese to English.
It can be seen that in these moments, the students used silence as a cognitive
process. The silent moments gave students chance to interpret given information and
apply their own knowledge to use the target language as they were trying to translate
their answers from L1 to the target language. This indicates that although they did not
say anything to respond in the lesson, it cannot be assumed that they were not involved
in the learning process. This finding was also shared by Ollin (2008) in which silence
was found to be involved in internal cognitive activity (p. 272).
Second, from the learners‟ perspectives, their silence was also related to their
concentration on enhancing their own work or learning from others. An said that she
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