摘　要

在外语教学研究的文献中，亚洲学生，尤其是中国学生一直都是与沉默、被动的语言学习者划等号的。中国学生在英语课掌上不愿意参与教学活动，不主动发表自己的观点，不提问，对教师过于依赖等现象很普遍。很多教师把课堂的这种沉默现象简单归因于亚洲文化因素所造成的学生本身固有的性情，认为不可改变，因而纷纷继续采用单向的讲座式的教学方法，如语法翻译法。然而随着国际交流和竞争的同益增多、增强和社会对人才英语综合能力要求的提高，这种教学方式的弊端已较为突显。因而要改变沉默现象，就要先对课堂沉默现象迸行重新认识。

关键词：沉默现象；中国学生；教学

Abstract

As a second/foreign language, East Asian(especially Chinese)students of English have been alleged to be reticent learners in the recent ESL/EFL literature. They don’t like to take part in any classroom activities; they don’t like to have any responses to the class; and questions are always not raised. A large majority of teachers and researchers consider this reticence to be the solitary of the students, which is made under the Asian societies’ characteristic. The characteristic is difficult to change. Therefore, the one-way lecture-mode teaching methods are advocated in the classes, especially the Grammar-Translation Method. However, with the growing of international communication and competition and the improving requirements of English comprehensive capability，the disadvantages of this kind of methods have become more and more obvious. So, we must know more about the silence phenomenon in college English class, and only in this way can we change the silence phenomenon.

Key words: English majors; silence phenomenon; teaching

1 Introduction
Chinese students are always reticent in class. They don’t like to take part in any classroom activities; they don’t like to have any responses to the class; questions are always not raised. This phenomenon can be found in the literature’s description about East Asian learners of English.
1.1 Research background
The English language education in China has been greatly advocated and become quite popular with the development of technology and science in China. The government and the researchers in this area have seen the projecting accomplishment of the English language teaching, great events have happened in China, such as the entry into WTO, the success of Olympic Games in 2008. Great changes have occurred in China.