Talk, silence and anxiety during one-to-one tutorials: A cross-cultural comparative study of Japan and UK undergraduates’ tolerance of silence

King, Jim; Aono, Atsuko

doi:10.1007/s12564-017-9503-8

Cited by 17 publications

(12 citation statements)

References 40 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…It could also examine how delays influence their partner's behaviour due to any discomfort resulting from perceived slow starts. King and Aono's (2017) cross-cultural study found little difference between British and Japanese students' discomfort level of silence.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 73%

“…It was also frequently noticeable that her pair would finish earlier than others, with her head facing downwards and neither of them talking in English or Japanese. King and Aono (2017) described this type of nonverbal cue in their study, where they found that some highly anxious learners can close down becoming almost 'like stones'. The student remains in complete control of their bodily responses and is highly aware of them with increased monitoring of the self but comes across as unnaturally still.…”

Section: An In-depth Example Of the Interrelated Nature Of Silence Anmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Observing Anxiety in the Foreign Language Classroom: Student Silence and Nonverbal Cues

Maher

King

2020

JPLL

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This study looked at multiple forms of silence and nonverbal cues of language anxiety in the foreign language classroom to explore their functions from the perspectives of students. Using the Classroom Oral Participation Scheme (COPS) developed by King (2013), 18 hours of observation produced data on learners’ verbal and non-verbal participation behaviours in Japanese university EFL classes. The data was analysed using the COPS participatory categories. Three recurring forms of silent L2 behaviour were identified: short responses, use of L1, and non-talk. Semi-structured follow-up interviews were carried out with 14 studentswhose silent behaviour was observed and transcribed into a corpus of 43,711 words. In addition to facilitative functions of silence such as cognitive processing, interviewees reported using silence to navigate interpersonal interactions with their classmates and fear of negative evaluation by peers. Findings illustrate how anxious learners may limit social exchanges in the target language for image protection purposes. For example, some students used short responses to avoid revealing a different opinion to their partner that might lead to an awkward interaction. The results suggest that awareness of nonverbal cues and silent behaviour - with multiple forms and functions, should be explored further as an approach to detecting language anxiety in EFL contexts.

show abstract

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 73%

Section: An In-depth Example Of the Interrelated Nature Of Silence Anmentioning

confidence: 99%

Observing Anxiety in the Foreign Language Classroom: Student Silence and Nonverbal Cues

Maher

King

2020

JPLL

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…An explanation for this might be the random grouping by the classroom teacher who did not consider students' friendships with each other. Being deeply influenced by Confucianism which values the Face Theory (King and Aono, 2017), Chinese students who do not know each other well tend to talk in a way that avoids praising themselves and others too much, bringing shame to one other, or pointing out each other's mistakes in order to minimize potential discomfort for all members and thus maintain group harmony at a surface level (Xu and Cao, 2012). Although such superficial group harmony does reflect students' mutual respect and politeness to each other, it may prevent students from communicating with each other more actively and freely during their interactions.…”

Section: Content Talkmentioning

confidence: 99%

Small-Group Student Talk Before Individual Writing in Tertiary English Writing Classrooms in China: Nature and Insights

Zhang

Parr

2020

Front. Psychol.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

When exploring the nature of small-group student talk in English-as-a-foreign-language (EFL) individual writing in terms of what students are talking about, previous studies have mainly linked it to students' writing and focused more on students' written texts than their talk. Consequently, the analyses have largely been text-oriented rather than talk-oriented and have failed to reveal a complete picture of such talk and the socially negotiated nature of the interaction. To fill up the literature gap, we designed a study to investigate the nature of prewriting small-group student talk in Chinese tertiary EFL writing classrooms. Specifically, we examined what students were talking about when engaging in argumentative writing tasks prior to individual writing. Eight hours of audio recordings of student talk from eight small groups in two classes (N = 48) were collected during their prewriting small-group discussions. They were analyzed and interpreted in six categories: Content talk, language talk, task-management talk, organization talk, affective talk, and phatic talk. Major findings show that small-group student talk: (1) enabled students to generate content, language, and organization for their proceeding individual writing; (2) provided them with opportunities to facilitate collaborative linguistic problem-solving and the deliberate use of the first language (L1) for requesting and clarifying information; (3) allowed them to organize the group and scaffold each other collectively to manage the ongoing process of the task; and (4) assisted them to share their emotions and maintain group harmony at a surface level but did not help generate direct positive or negative affective expressions. Pedagogical insights into L2 writing instruction are also discussed.

show abstract

“…Educators can help combat reticence by explaining the norms of classroom interaction explicitly (King & Aono, 2017). For instance, in the orientation of the English class, teachers can introduce the English only policy.…”

Section: Solutions To Reticencementioning

confidence: 99%

Reticence in the EFL Classroom: Voices from Students in a Chinese University

Huashan

2019

Int. J. Appl. Linguist. Engl. Lit.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Student reticence in the English classroom is a pervasive phenomenon in the EFL context, yet limited empirical research on reticence among Chinese university students can be found in the previous literature. This study investigated the students’ perception regarding the reasons behind their reticence. Student respondents also proposed coping strategies both from students’ and teachers’ perspectives. 144 first-year undergraduates undertaking various disciplines in a Chinese university participated in the research. Methodological triangulation involving quantitative and qualitative methods was adopted. Findings indicate that low language proficiency, foreign language anxiety, introversion and teachers’ influence are strongly related with student reticence. By employing thematic content analysis, it is found that informants may respond with self-encouragement, adequate preparation and oral practice in an attempt to produce more oral output. Meanwhile, they expect teachers to organize more speaking activities, give guidance and be amicable, which can effectively promote classroom interaction. It is hoped that the findings of this research could potentially help to address student reticence in the English classroom at the tertiary level.

show abstract

Talk, silence and anxiety during one-to-one tutorials: A cross-cultural comparative study of Japan and UK undergraduates’ tolerance of silence

Abstract: primary theme to emerge in this phase of data collection. We propose the construct situational silence anxiety to describe such feelings of apprehension during situated encounters in which talk is expected but does not occur.

Cited by 17 publications

References 40 publications

Observing Anxiety in the Foreign Language Classroom: Student Silence and Nonverbal Cues

Observing Anxiety in the Foreign Language Classroom: Student Silence and Nonverbal Cues

Small-Group Student Talk Before Individual Writing in Tertiary English Writing Classrooms in China: Nature and Insights

Reticence in the EFL Classroom: Voices from Students in a Chinese University

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About