Exploring non english major students’ and teachers’ perceptions of silence in tertiary EFL classrooms in vietnam

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

(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

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

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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

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

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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

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

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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

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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

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

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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

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

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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”

(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

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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

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

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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

Table 3.2: The Descriptions of Students in Observations

No Class Number of students Number of males Number of females

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

Table 3.4: The Descriptions of Teachers in Interviews

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

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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?”

 “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?”

3.3 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

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 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

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

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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:

Personal factors (characteristics, personal problems) PF

Cultural factors (power distance, collectivism) CF

Environmental factors (teachers, peers) LE

Table 3.5: The coding scheme

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

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

was silent to listen to her friends to get ideas from them and applied it into completing her own work She also added that she was listening to her peers and preparing the answer for next question at that moment because she was afraid that she would be called up subsequently by the teacher Phan and Giang also did not respond to their teacher since they were busy correcting their exercises Giang added that he wanted to listen to the teacher‟s explanation to correct his own writing instead of responding to her The students seemed to be intentionally irresponsive in such situations in order to learn from the others and to concentrate on enhancing their own learning This was similar to what was investigated in a study of Bao (2014) about Australian students who used silent moments to improve their verbal performance quality

Third, the students also perceived their silence as the moments when they could retrieve the information and recall knowledge In a listening lesson, Chi did not respond when her teacher was trying to elicit response from the class about what was said by speakers in the listening audio She explained that she was trying to recall what she had listened but she could remember only a few words Thus, the mental process of recalling and retrieving information from the audio contributed to this student‟s choice

to remain silent This can be seen that the student was still active in learning though she was silent or irresponsive in class Similarly, in Bao (2014), Vietnamese students were found to use silence as a link between their new knowledge and previous one

Next, learners‟ silence in class at times was also related to the students‟ learning styles or learning habit of the students For instance, in a situation when the teacher tried to find out a student who knew the answer and An was observed to keep silent In the retrospective interview, An admitted that she knew the answer but she did not raise her hand or speak up She said that speaking up in class was not her learning habit, and she would talk aloud only when the teacher required her to do so This learning habit of

An is similar to that of Phan and Hoa who was also silent to wait to be called up by the teacher Besides, Hoa also shared in the interview that even she knew how to respond, she still kept silent because that habit has been trained If she did not respond, her teacher would give answer for her own questions afterwards Such learning habit of

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An, Phan and Hoa might also indicate that they were used to the way their English teachers managed classroom activities The students remain silent until their teacher invites them to speak and seem not to feel constrained by such silent, which seems to make them gradually become more passive in such L2 lessons

In a silent moment when the teacher was correcting Giang‟s work on the blackboard and was asking the whole class whether each of his answer was correct or not, Giang and many other students were observed to be irresponsive to the teacher They only looked at their books or something else on their tables and avoided eye contact with their teacher In the retrospective interview, Giang shared that:

At that moment, I found that my answer was correct, so I did not say or ask anything, I think I would only say or ask my teacher if

my answer was incorrect

Keeping silent seemed to be a learning habit of Giang He merely spoke up when he needs clarification for incorrect answers in his exercises Hence, keeping silent in such situation did not mean that the students were not thinking about the question or were not concentrating They actively chose to be silent though they knew how to answer since they are accustomed to that way of learning and behaving in their English lessons The above perception of students demonstrates that remaining silent in class might be a traditional learning style of students (Nguyen, 2002) or a trained learning habit and students might grow comfortable with it

All in all, it can be seen that active silence could be used by students for the purpose of learning Students might not say anything but they are still thinking and learning actively as they are concentrating on processing or retrieving the information given, perfecting their own work, listening to learn from others, preparing for the answers by translating from L1 to the target language, or when silence in class is their accustomed learning habit or style

Nonetheless, in the aforementioned situations, it was seen that students‟ silence was mainly related to their being conditioned to trying to find correct answers Those who had not yet found the right answers were busy finding ones Those who already

knew the answers waited for their teacher‟s confirmation, or were trained to have a habit of keeping silent until being called up It seems that if teachers continuously raise questions and expect the students‟ correct responses only, they might continue facing students‟ silence in almost situations Besides, if students keep believing that learning

in English lessons is mainly about finding correct answers and speaking up only when they are sure or when teacher calls them up, these learners might gradually become more passive in learning and limit their chance to interact to practice using the target language which is essential in foreign language learning

4.1.2 Inactive silence (Passive silence)

Besides the purpose of learning, some students revealed that their silence was also related to other factors which might have restrained them from orally participating

in the lessons When being asked by the researcher about what they were thinking in silent moments shown on the video, students shared perceptions of their silence relating to different interrelated factors

First, students shared that they kept silent as a way of showing their respect to the teachers who are usually considered in a higher position in classrooms of high-power distance culture like Vietnam (Hofstede, n.d) For example, Dao and Hoa shared that they did not talk aloud because they respected their teacher and did not want to interrupt her talking When watching an active male student talking aloud to answer most of the teacher‟s questions, Hoa commented that she could not get used to that way

of talking and would speak only when being called up She also considered her friend‟s talking aloud as being inappropriate and interruptive Having the same point of view with Hoa, Phan tried to be polite and relied significantly on the way his teacher distributed opportunities to talk because even he knew the answer for the teacher‟s questions, he did not raise his voice Phan explained for his silence that he “was waiting for being called up by the teacher” This indicates that from these students‟ perspectives, the higher position of teachers in classroom hierarchy in Vietnamese culture deserves to be respected (Nguyen, 2002) This could be demonstrated by students‟ keeping silent while their teacher is teaching, initiating class activities or

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distributing learning chances for students (Hoang & Pham, 2019) In such environment, teachers can teach and talk continuously without expecting to be interrupted or questioned by students Thus, the assumption of who should be entitled

to talk aloud in class might have stopped students from raising their voice

Besides, when sharing about their choice to keep silent instead of talking aloud, learners admitted that they were afraid of making mistakes and did not want to show their weaknesses, which demonstrated that their silence can be seen as their face-saving strategy Dao said that she was too shy to speak aloud since she was afraid of pronouncing incorrectly Hoa shared the same fear of making mistakes in front of classmates:

Because the class was quiet, it would be quite awkward to talk aloud If I spoke up and answer incorrectly, I would feel so embarrassed that I decided to speak very little

The students avoided talking aloud to respond to the teacher as they did not want to give incorrect answer in front of their peers They believed that if they spoke

up and made mistakes, it would be an awkward and embarrassing moments Consequently, they decided to remain silent even though they knew what and how to respond to teacher‟s questions

In a situation when the teacher asked all students in class a question and Phan did not respond When being interviewed, he said that:

I understood her question I was afraid that if I responded, my teacher would ask me more complicated questions and I would not know the answers, because my English was not enough

[…] Because I am weak at this subject, I do not want to show my weaknesses I wait for my improvement To me, it is negative to

be silent but I hesitate to manifest this weakness

The fear of making mistakes, as revealed by the students, were mainly due to their being insecure and unconfident about their limited English competence, which discouraged them from speaking up in English lessons An and Duong shared the same explanation that they were not confident enough with their speaking and English

communication skills, especially in terms of pronunciation, so they decided not to say anything An was noticed to remain silent when her teacher tried to elicit students of previous knowledge When talking to the researcher, An explained that:

Because I was weak at learning English, I was under pressure when sitting in English lessons I do not know about many things

in English so I was afraid to be asked about what I did not know

This can be seen that An felt stressed and uncomfortable in the lesson because

of her inadequate knowledge In order to deal with such problem, she chose to keep silent and felt afraid of being called up by her teacher

In addition, this student was also observed to listen attentively to the conversation in English between her teacher and a male student and then, she smiled with a female student Talking about that moment, she shared that:

I and the female student sitting in front of me were listening to what my teacher and that male student, then, we smiled with each other because we did not understand anything they were saying, because they were speaking very fast and I could not follow

At first, I intended to take notes of what he was saying, but he spoke too fast for me to follow, then, I gave up and let them talk

Afterwards, the teacher asked the whole class whether they had any questions for the male student or needed any clarification, but An did not say anything In the interview, she said that at that moment, she thought almost everything he said needed

to be clarified However, she did not know from which point of his talk she should start

to ask for explanation, because he had spoken so fast Having difficulties in understanding spoken English, An remained silent and did not voice her opinion to slow down the speaking speed of the teacher and that male student or to ask for clarification Such silence of An and the female peer might have been related to their inadequate knowledge of English listening skill

Having the same obstacles with English listening skills, Phan and Giang were also silent in some moments when their teacher asked in English about the answers for

a listening exercise Talking about these moments, Phan and Giang said that they did