2. Reasons of students’ silence in

2. Reasons of students’ silence in English classIn order to figure out the reason of students’ silence in English class, a researcher made a questionnaire survey on senior high school students and their English teachers. And the questionnaire took the form of multiple-choice question, requesting the only answer. This investigation altogether provides questionnaire 400, the actual recovery of 387 copies, of which 370 valid questionnaires, for an effective questionnaire returns-ratio is 80%. The interviewee, 9 English teachers in this school, have 3 to 20 years teaching experience, and have 16 lessons or above a week. The topic mentioned in this interview is in line with the content of the questionnaire. This interview was in teachers’ office and was recorded live. Soon after, the researcher collected the data. (as follows’ sheet) Sheet1 students comment on their oral English speaking abilitiesOral expression ability Student numbers The percentage of the total numbersExcellent 12 3%Relatively good 47 12%General 134 35%Poor 138 36% Sheet1 shows 71% of investigated students regard their oral English speaking abilities as general or rather poor. However, only 15% of investigated students take their oral English speaking abilities for relatively good or excellent. It follows that the majority of students think the reason why they keep silence in English class is that they are lacking in an excellent oral English speaking ability. What’s more, almost every interviewed teacher mentioned the main reason causing students’ silence in English class is their poor English. Six of the interviewed teachers said two-fourths students in their class only can introduce themselves or talk about their hobbies in English and some basic expressions. Seven of the teachers told the researcher that it seems that some students cannot understand what are the teachers saying in class and when they are asked to answer the question, they only can say one or two words out or even say “I don’t know”. We can see from the statistic and interview above that the cognition of students and teachers on the main reason causing students’ silence in English class is basically the same, which is students’ poor oral English.Through the investigation and analysis by many approaches such as collecting data, observing, questionnaires and interviews and combing other experts and scholars ideas, it can be found that the following reasons lead to silence in English class.