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FACTORS AFFECTING STUDENTS’ SILENCE IN INLIT CLASS
Introduction
Students’ silence in learning English has become a paramount issue addressed in an
ESL/EFL classroom. From the year 1985s’ (Tannen, 1985) until today research upon silence
has never come to an end. At the beginning, studies on silence investigated silence
phenomenon based on the person country origin such as New Yorkers or Californian. Tannen
(1985) argued that New Yorkers silence Canadians because New Yorkers talk a lot more than
Canadians. In 1990s the research developed to ESL and EFL classroom in which silence
appeared because of geographic positions such as Asian students. For example, Chinese were
considered reticence because of the Confusian belief. However, in early 2000, Cheng argued
against the allegation saying that even though Confusian exist, the belief never taught them to
remain silent.
Five years after that, the students’ silence research was developed in ESL / EFL
classroom, for example in a speaking class (Liu, 2005). A few years later, research upon
students’ silence is conducted by combining anxiety and reticence (Lu, Zhang, & Lu, 2011).
The previous studies showed that factors affecting silence were complex. Unfortunately,
there is a few research concern in content courses class. Thus, there is lack of finding about
silence appears in content course. That is why I conduct research on students’ silence.
I remember my past experience joining an Intro to Literature (Inlit) class. The lecturer
invited students to be active by asking questions, for example is there any opinion? Or do you
agree with your friends’ opinion? Sometimes, he provided an interesting activity to invite
students to speak. Even so, I became silent because of my smarter peer’s ability. My smarter
peer was named Dia (a pseudonym). Dia and I joined the same English club in the English
Department named English Debating Society (EDS). Dia’s greater ability was the reason for
my silence.
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FACTORS AFFECTING STUDENTS’ SILENCE IN INLIT CLASS
As an EDS member, Dia was an outstanding member because she had better critical
thinking and greater knowledge than me. She knew current issues very well. As an Inlit
student, she was great too. In all of Dia’s active participations, she could support her ideas
with reliable supporting details such as giving the background of the writers, connecting to
the current conditions and etc.
Many times I found myself silent when I knew she had given a comment before I had
opportunity to comment. I realized that my comment was worse than her. Instead of speaking
and being ashamed by providing trivial ideas, I remained silent. Because I did not want to be
judged as a low competence student by Dia. Therefore, my silence appeared because of my
smarter peer’s presence and my fear of being judged as a low competence student. As Morita
(2004) said, smart students’ presence make other students silent. Furthermore, the fear of
being negatively judged as a low competence student, creates a student silence (Ohata, 2005).
Because of my past experience as a silent student in Inlit class, I conduct research on
factors affecting students’ silence in Inlit class. My study aimed to answer my research
question about factors affecting students’ silence in Inlit class. The research question is what
factors affecting students’ silence in Inlit class.
Although many researches on students’ silence have been conducteded, my research
is still needed. Previous research on students’ silence was dominated by two kinds of
research. First, the research was conducted in English classroom such as oral language
classroom (Liu, 2005), EFL classroom (Liu & Jackson, 2009), and Hongkong English
classroom (Tong, 2010). Other researches on students’ silence investigated Asian students’
who study in English speaking countries such as Australia (Marlina, 2009) and London (Ping,
2010). However, only few researches were conducted on students’ silence within content
courses in Indonesia.
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FACTORS AFFECTING STUDENTS’ SILENCE IN INLIT CLASS
I think it is important to know about the differences especially in Indonesia because
nearly all population in Indonesian learns English in Indonesia. Also, nearly all Indonesian
teachers teach Indonesian students. Thus, this research will help both teachers and learner to
picture factors affecting students’ silence in content course.
Theoretical framework
In the past few years, there are growing attentions to examine students’ silent in the
field of education.
Based on Inlit handbook academic year 2011/ 2012 students are
demanded to be active in various occasions. They are classroom discussions, group
discussions, individual or group presentations, commenting to topics, reacting to other peers’
utterances, nominating by the lecturer, and etc. Students’ silences appear when students did
not join active participations. Thus, I use Nakane (2007)’s definition that meet classroom
participations in Inlit classes. She defines students’ silence as “… silent response, not
participating in specific participant structures, or not participating in interaction on specific
topics, or not taking certain speakers roles, or not performing certain speech acts...” (p.198).
The first factor affecting students’ silence is socio-psychology factors. The sociopsychology factors consist of students interaction with classmates (e.g: friendship), and
students’ attitude toward their classmates (eg: smart peers, silence peers, and etc.). Reflecting
on my past silence experience in Inlit class, I believed that Dia was smarter than me. Also,
she was more knowledgeable and fluent than me. Jaworski and Sachdev (1998) stated that
people who have greater power in class silence people who have lower power. Thus, Morita
(2004) said that students who underestimated their selves as unintelligent and not smart could
become silent.
Another socio-psychology factor affecting students silence is culture (Nakane, 2007).
Some researchers are against the idea that culture plays a role in students’ silence (Cheng,
2000; Marlina, 2009). Unfortunately, Ping (2010) who joins for two-month study in the
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FACTORS AFFECTING STUDENTS’ SILENCE IN INLIT CLASS
London Metropolitan University said differently. He admitted that the “Mianzi culture”
hindered him to actively contribute. Moreover, Nakane (2007) figured out the meaning of
silence was different from one culture to another. She explained that silence can show power
in one culture whereas in another culture it means rejection to a proposal.
In community context, the silent attitude is an expression of copying others. It can be
a form of looking for recognition from the majorities (Cabin, 2000) or it is a form of
maintaining solidarities (Nakane, 2007). Next, students became silent because of the anxiety
of getting a bad impression from classmates such as looking for lecturer’s attention or having
low proficiency. Weedon (1987), as cited in Peirce (1995), stated that social identities are a
form of action to adjust behavior to meet with the social condition. Ohata (2005) added that
students remain silent because they fear being judged as low competence students. Besides
that, fear of not fulfilling the lecturer’s expectation (Tsui, 1996) and fear to produce
misunderstands utterances (Ping, 2010) triggered students’ silence. In contrast, Liu, Zhang, &
Lu (2011) found that active students turn into silent ones because they do not want to show
off.
The second factor affecting students’ silence is cognition. What I mean by cognitive
factors are the inability of students to interact, analyze, and criticize the Inlit materials. To be
able to interact, analyze, and criticize the Inlit materials, students need to understand and
familiarize themselveswith the topic. Thus, students who are not familiar with the topic being
discussed can become silent. Thornbury (2005) stated that students who are unfamiliar with
the topic are likely to be silent.
Besides that, the background knowledge or schema is needed to connect information
that students already knew with the new information that they will adsorb (Bartler, 1932).
Nakane (2007) added that students’ silence can also appear because students lack schema. In
terms of analysis, Laszlo (1987) argued that poems that consist of an unordinary idea, need
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FACTORS AFFECTING STUDENTS’ SILENCE IN INLIT CLASS
more analysis to figure out the literature work. According to McRae, 1991 as cited in
Sivasubramaniam, 2006, stated that students who are not interested in materials can resist
from actively engages with the materials. Thus, some students are reluctant to participate, so
that they will not be judged as foolish.
The third factor affecting students’ silence is fluency. Fluency factors include ability
to master vocabularies and an ability to produce utterances. Liu (2005) said that one of the
reasons for students silence is caused by the lack of mastering vocabularies. Silences happen
because of students’ failure to arrange ideas. The low competence students are afraid of
presenting insufficient utterances (Kurihara, 2006). All in all students who worried over
grammars, vocabularies, phonology structures, and how to arrange ideas will have a tendency
to remain silent (Ali, 2007).
The presentation of the theoretical framework of factors affecting students’ silence is
made in the form of a table. The following table is the summary of factors affecting students’
Table 1: Factors affecting students’ silence.
Categories
Socio-psychology factor
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
Cognitive factor
Fluency factor
8.
1.
2.
3.
1.
2.
3.
Students reason of being silent
Smarter students silence less smart students.
Students underestimate their own ability.
Culture affects students’ silence.
Students look for recognition of others by silence.
Students maintain solidarity by silence.
Students fear being judged as low competence
students when they speak.
Students fear of not fulfilling the teacher expectations
when they speak.
Students fear of showing off when they speak.
Students are unfamiliar with the topic.
Students do not have schema.
Students are not interested in the topic.
Students lack vocabularies.
Students are afraid of not presenting sufficient
utterances.
Students can not convey ideas properly.
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FACTORS AFFECTING STUDENTS’ SILENCE IN INLIT CLASS
The study
In this section, I will discuss the context of the study, the participants, the procedure
of data collections and the data analysis.
Context of the study
My research took place in Satya Wacana Christian University (SWCU) Salatiga. To
be specific, the study is done in the Introduction to Literature class English Department
faculty of language and literature. Inlit class is the prerequisite class for the next literature
classes, prose, poetry, and drama class. Here, Inlit consists of various kinds of literature
material such as prose, poems and drama.
This class is dominated with 2009ers students. Even so, there are no restricted classes
of students to join this class. The youngest students come from 2010ers, and the oldest were
2006ers. This class is offered every year in the even semester.
In Inlit class, students are expected to actively participate both orally and through
written participations. Every meeting, students are obliged to submit journals according to the
material that will be discussed in class. Students need to report the journal they have written
orally. Students have the opportunity to speak in whole class discussion, group discussion,
individual, and presentations.
In Inlit class students’ oral responses are done willingly. The lecturer rarely nominates
their students to answer. Lecturer nominates students to speak if the class is being silent and
no one is willing to give the oral contribution.
Participants
In this opportunity, the participants are fifteen students in the English department of
Satya Wacana Christian University who enrolled in the Inlit class on the even semester
academic year 2011-2012. Those 15 students were selected based on a random sampling
(McKay, 2006) from 4 different Inlit classes. From my participants’ explanation, various
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silences are gathered. There are silent students, rather silent students, rather active students or
active students.
Instrument of data collection
For the instrument of data collection, I use semi-structure interviews (McKay, 2006).
The semi-structured interview is an interview that consists of the same questions but the
structured of the questions being asked is flexible according to the participants’ responses.
The interview is conducted in the middle or nearly the end of Inlit class period. Precisely, the
interviews are hold from April to June 2011. The time of the interview is based on the
participants’ free time. The length of interview is around 10 to 15 minutes. See appendix A
for the complete interview questions.
Procedure of data collection
The data collections started by giving questionnaires to Inlit students. Using the
random sampling, I interview 15 students who willingly joined interview. The interview use
Bahasa Indonesia. Bahasa Indonesia is used in order to make participants easier to express
their opinion and feeling. The three main questions given to participants are: explain your
characteristic in Inlit class, whether you are an active student or a silent student? Have you
ever been silent in Inlit class? What are your reasons for being silent in Inlit class?
Data Analysis
The data analysis starts by reading carefully the clean transcriptions where the focus
of the interview is based on the content of the interview (Zacharias, 2010). After that, similar
data would be gathered into the same categories. The emerging themes were found through
content-analysis (McKay, 2006), where the participants’ comments are the source for the
emerging themes. Based on the participants’ comments, there are three factors affecting
students’ silent, socio-psychology, cognitive, and fluency.
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FACTORS AFFECTING STUDENTS’ SILENCE IN INLIT CLASS
Findings and Discussion
This chapter talks about the analysis of factors affecting students’ silence in Inlit
class. In this study, there are three emerging themes arranged according to the number of
comments given. The emerging themes are socio-psychology factors, cognitive factors, and
fluency factors.
Socio-psychology factors
The first factor affecting students’ silence is socio-psychology factors. Sociopsychology factors are factors that come from students’ self perceptions and students’
perceptions of peers. The students’ self perceptions include a feeling of having low
competence and fear of making mistakes. The students’ perceptions of others include the fear
of negative opinion from peers such as showing off, does not comfortable, and differ.
To begin analyzing the socio-psychology factors, I found Ninuk and Dana
(pseudonyms) were silent because of smarter peers’ intelligence. The smarter peers’
intelligence is proven by having better grades and greater analysis skills. Ninuk and Dana
thought that smarter peers had more capacity to actively participate instead of them. Here are
Ninuk’s and Dana’s comments:
Sometimes, there are students who are more proficient in the class. They are
good at answering questions. I am a little bit inferior. So, I am silent. His or
her Inlit grade is A. All his/ her journals are perfect
(Ninuk, 5th interview, May 12th 2011 my translation)
Some friends can do in depth- analysis on poems and short stories. They
could analyze deeply….If I answer, my analysis is very different.
(Dana 7 th interview, May 12th 2012, my translation)
The data above shows that Dana and Ninuk are silent because they thought smarter
peers are better than them. Ninuk described smarter peers were those who had better grades
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FACTORS AFFECTING STUDENTS’ SILENCE IN INLIT CLASS
and are more fluent than her. Dana described smart peers were those who could make deep
analysis of poems or short stories. Ninuk and Dana considered smarter peers were more
powerful to control their active contributions instead of them.
According to Ninuk’s and Dana’s data stated that smart’s peers are able to make indepth analysis and have better grades, so according to them smart students deserve to speak
instead of “unintelligent” students. Morita (2004) explained that smart students present
silences students who thought themselves as not smart students. Morita continues, non-smart
students judged themselves as not intelligent and competent as smarter students. Ohata
(2005) stated that students become silent if they fear being valued as low competence
students.
On the other occasion, Dana is silent because she feared making peers and the lecturer
difficult in understanding her utterances:
If I explained in long sentences that lecturer and peers do not understand, I
make mistakes. It is better for me to keep silent.
(Dana, May 12th 2011, my translation)
The above excerpt implies that Dana’s silence is much affected by fear of making
mistakes. Dana’s also fears making the lecturer or peers do not understand her utterances.
Furthermore, she was afraid if she could not satisfy the lecturer’s and friends’ expectations to
provide comprehensible utterances, so she became silent. Tsui (1996) comments that students
are afraid and became silent if they cannot answer as expected by the lecturer. Ping (2010)
noticed that students became silent because they fear making misunderstood utterances.
Morita (2004) added that students who realize they have a low competence would remain
silent because they fear that the teacher judges them as incompetent.
One of my participants, Nana, recalls her relationship with her close friends in Inlit
class. She reported that her close friends’ silent attitude influence herself to be silent.
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FACTORS AFFECTING STUDENTS’ SILENCE IN INLIT CLASS
I am in the same class with my close friends….They pay attention to the
lesson. They could not be disturbed. They speak only once or twice if
needed. However, it rarely happened. It is weird [to speak alone] like a crazy
person ….It influences me to be silent.
(Nana, 11th interview May 31 st, 2011 my translation)
The above excerpt implies that silence resulted from the close relationship of Nana
and her friends. In that relation, Nana is the one who wants to be active, whereas her close
friends are silent. She thought that being silent was more “normal” than joining the active
participation. That condition triggered Nana to imitate her close friends by being silent. The
silence is an action to maintain harmony with her close friends.
For Nana, it is important to keep the harmony with her close friends by being silent.
Because it shows that she belongs to the close friends’ relationship. Cabin (2000) stated that
people adjust their behavior to community behavior in order to be recognized as the member
of the community.
Apart from the above analysis, some researchers neglect the role of culture that make
students silent. Through Dina’s explanation, I notice that culture also takes part in students’
silence. The following is Dina’s comment about her silence that is affected by culture.
I feel bored. Because students who speak always the same. So, If I want to
speak more I am uncomfortable….If I am always active, in Javanese we call
it “rikuh”.
(Dina, April 16th 2011 my translation)
The above excerpt explained that Dina get bored because of the limited students who
wanted to be active. Furthermore, she recognized that the Javanese culture of ‘rikuh’
influence her silence. As a Javanese, I define ‘rikuh’ as uncomfortable and uneasy feeling
because of one’s own capabilities to not adjust with the situation. Based on Dina’s comment,
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FACTORS AFFECTING STUDENTS’ SILENCE IN INLIT CLASS
her frequent active participations were considered wrong. To overcome the ‘rikuh’ feeling,
she tried to adapt with the classroom situation by being silent.
In terms of culture, Nakane (2007) explained that the meaning of silence is different
from one culture to another. She explained that a silence in social context means avoiding
conflicts and imposition. Another culture values silence to show power. Dina upheld the
‘rikuh’ from Javanese culture. The ‘rikuh’ belief’s force her to adjust her active contributions
into passive contributions which is silence. In connection to previous statements, Nana’s and
Dina’s silence was a form of maintaining solidarity with peers (Nakane, 2007).
The next participant, Gama (a pseudonym) is silent because he was afraid of being
negatively judged as looking for the lecturer’s attention.
Once or twice, I will try to be active. But if it is done too frequent, it leaves
impression that only I want to speak. Not all my friends like me. I am afraid
if they might think my active participation as a form of grabbing teacher
attention. That perception could influence my active participation.
(Gama, 10th interview, May 17th 2011 my translation)
The above excerpt shows that Gama’s peers are likely to be silent instead of actively
engaging in the oral participation. In contrast, Gama proclaimed himself as an active student
who likes to take part in active contributions. Gama became silent because he was cautious of
peers’ negative opinion such as seeking lecturer’s attentions. Gama’s data excerpt was inline
with Liu, Zhang, and Lu (2011) who stated that active students become silent because they do
not want to be judged as showing off.
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FACTORS AFFECTING STUDENTS’ SILENCE IN INLIT CLASS
Cognitive factors
The second factor affecting students’ silence is cognition. The cognitive factors
include the ability to analyze Inlit materials such as poems. By using the literature text,
Halasz (1987) expected readers to be able to comprehend literature work and correlate the
text with cognitive and social psychology. To be able to analyze properly, Gama, Ani and
Dana (pseudonyms) are expected to have enough schemas toward materials they read.
Participants have a high possibility of being silent if they do not have any schema or
background knowledge of the poems being discussed.
According to the participants, the visual dimension poetry and haiku poem influence
their silence. Visual dimension poetry is poetry that focuses on the shapes and signs to
convey its meaning (Bohn, 2001). According to Thunman (1991), haiku is a Japanese poem
that consists of seventeen syllables that usually talks about nature.
One participant, Gama admitted that he meets an obstacle understanding a visual
dimension poetry entitled “A leaf falls on loneliness”. The following is Gama’s comment on
difficulties to analyze visual dimension poems that silence him.
[To interpret a poem] Sometimes one word does not only have dictionary
meaning. Sometimes one word can be interpreted in different ways.
Especially, poems from foreign country, the poets’ way of thinking are
different from the poets here. I do not know the foreign culture of foreign
poets. [For example] A particular word would have a different meaning.
That is the difficult part….A leaf falls on loneliness [title of a poem], I do
not even know how to read that.
(Gama, 5th interview, May 17th 2011 my translation)
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FACTORS AFFECTING STUDENTS’ SILENCE IN INLIT CLASS
The following poem is the example of a poem that Gama found a problem interpreting
the poem.
Poetry – Visual Dimension
1(a… (a leaf falls on loneliness)
E.E Cummnings
1(a
le
af
fa
ll
s)
one
l
iness
(Bradford, 2011 p.32)
The above displayed data explained that Gama’s inability to read ‘A leaf falls on
loneliness’ is not because he was illiterate. According to the display of the poem, the word is
arranged to a certain extent that it could not be understood easily. Since Gama did not have
any schema related to visual dimension poetry, he just read accordingly. Gama was silent
because he lack the schema on how to read the poem. As a result he could not analyze the
poem or give oral participation. From Gama’s data excerpt, Laszlo (1987) supported that
literature works bring unordinary ideas, so it should be analyzed carefully. When Gama
could not find out visual dimension poem ideas, he became silent.
Moreover, Ani became silent not only in visual dimension poems but also in
discussing haiku. She could not participate orally because she had low cognitive competence
to relate poems or short stories with real life. Her lack of knowledge toward visual dimension
and haiku are expressed as follows:
I do not understand the meaning of poems or short stories. I know the story,
but when I was asked to comment further, connect it to real life and
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FACTORS AFFECTING STUDENTS’ SILENCE IN INLIT CLASS
everything, I can not give comments. Rather than speaking, making mistakes
and the meaning is too far, It is better for me to listen to the other students’
opinion…. [In a poem entitled book] What if my imagination is low? What
should I do? How a butterfly can be a book? Confusing isn’t it! This one
[1(a… (a leaf falls on loneliness)] and signs like this [Justice]. I do not
understand.
(Ani, June 9th 2011 my translation)
Besides “A leaf falls on loneliness”, Ani had difficulties analyzing poem entitled
“Justice” and “Book”. I present poems as follow:
Justice
It’s understandable;
what with those
awful murders in lpswich
and that poor girl just
yards from her home.
The stabbings
the shooting
the rapes,
yeah,it’s understandable.
But should this really
be the b(#) line ?
o(#)
t (#)
t (#)
o (#)
m(#)
(#)
(#)
(#)
(#)
(#)
(#)
(#)
(#)
(#)
(#)
(#)
(Inlit material p.37)
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Book
Tatsuji Miyoshi
A butterfly, a white book
A butterfly, a light book
It dances up a dune
Stiching the horizon.
(Inlit material p. 39)
Ani’s silence was started by not understanding the visual dimension poetry and haiku.
Furthermore, she could not relate the poem with real life. Those happened because she lacked
the schema related to the visual dimension poetry and haiku. Ani feared producing
insufficient errors and mistakes when she was interpreting poems or delivering comments.
Ping (2010) states that students prefer silence because they do not want to appear foolish.
Dana has the similar opinion with Ani. Dana found difficulty to relate real life with
the visual dimension poetry and haiku.
…I do not really understand what the poet means in his/ her poem. Because
poem is abstract….for example this poem [poems entitled The Deer, Book by
Tatsuji miyoji]. They are unclear and haiku. Still, I have to be creative [to
analyze the poem]. I can not do that.
(Dana, may 12th 2011)
Dana faces obstacles in analyzing poems entitled “Book” and “The Deer” written by
Tatsuji Miyoshi.
I will attach the poem entitled “The deer” because “Book” has been
attached in page 15 and 16. Here is the poem:
The Deer
Tatsuji Miyoshi
In the morning in a forest a deer is crouching.
Upon his shoulders, the shadow of his horns.
A single deerfly cuts across the space of the breeze and hovers
Close to his ears as they listen to a far-off river valley (Thunman,1991 p. 24)
Dana’s interview excerpt implies that Dana’s silence was much affected by her
unfamiliarity of the visual dimension poetry and haiku. Consequently, she could not develop
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FACTORS AFFECTING STUDENTS’ SILENCE IN INLIT CLASS
her creativity to analyze the poem. The inability to analyze the visual dimension poetry and
haiku happened because she did not have any schema.
Generally speaking, Ani’s and Dana’s silence happen because they are unfamiliar
with the visual dimension poetry and haiku. Thornbury (2005) said that speaking can be
difficult when the speaker is not familiar with the topic. To analyze the poems participants
need to be involved and interact with the poem.
In cognitive theme, schema is the basic requirements to be able to read, understand,
and analyze literature works such as poem and prose. According to Nakane (2007)
participants tend to be silent if they do not have enough schemas. The schema is needed
because it connects students’ previous knowledge with new information that students will
receive (Bartler, 1932).
Fluency
The third emerging theme related to factors affecting students silence is fluency. What
I mean by fluency is the ability to process information and participants’ ability to maintain
oral participation.
Nita (a pseudonym) found that the difficulty to express her thoughts hindered her
active contribution in class discussion. When Nita did not have the exact English vocabulary
to replace her ideas, thus Nita becomes reluctant to participate.
Sometimes, I want [to speak] like this but there is no appropriate answer.
What is the word? How I should say it? What is the correct [vocabularies]? I
want to say “A” but it comes out different. How about the vocabularies and
words arrangement?
(Nita, 14th interview, May 12th 2011 my translation)
The above excerpt implies that Nita is always looking for exact vocabularies to
replace her ideas. Besides that, she confuses of how words were supposed to be arranged.
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FACTORS AFFECTING STUDENTS’ SILENCE IN INLIT CLASS
Once, she tried to speak, but she failed to convey her ideas into English. Reflecting on her
previous experience, she refrained from speaking when she realized that she did not have the
exact words to express her ideas. Kurihara (2006) said that students are being silent because
of fear of failure to convey ideas. Ali (2007) said that students remain reticent when students
worry about how to use grammars, vocabularies, phonology, and how to arrange ideas.
Another participant, Ririn commented on her silence when she had difficulties to
arrange ideas. The excerpt below is Ririn’s comment on her silence that happened because of
difficulties to utter ideas.
Sometimes I got stuck on English vocabularies. I have not really mastered
vocabularies. In my mind, there are ideas but the ideas are difficult to come
out. The effect is I get confused myself to explain in sentence.
(Ririn, April 11th, 2011 my translation)
The above excerpt revealed Ririn’s silence that resulted from her confusion to express
her thoughts. It was not simply because she did not have ideas, but because she had limited
vocabularies. Because of her lack of English vocabularies, she could not appropriately
transfer the mother tongue idea into English.
Mastering vocabularies are the backbone to formulate ideas and to join oral
participations (Liu, 2005). When there are no appropriate vocabularies, ideas could not
appear. There are times participants are silent because they could not transfer ideas into
English. Tsui (1996) said that students became silent when they could not transfer the ideas
properly.
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FACTORS AFFECTING STUDENTS’ SILENCE IN INLIT CLASS
Conclusion and pedagogical Implication
In this study I investigated factors affecting students’ silence in Intro to literature class
(Inlit). Through this study, I have learnt that some students have more than one factor
affecting their silence in Inlit class. The study found three factors affecting students’ silence.
The factors are socio-psychology factors, cognitive factors, and fluency factors.
The first finding shows that socio-psychology factors affect students’ silence in Inlit
class. The socio-psychology factors closely relate to situations of classroom and peers’ ability
that affect students’ silence in Inlit class. The socio-psychology factors include smarter peers’
presence, fear of making mistakes, fear of not fulfilling lecturer expectations, acts of
maintaining solidarity and fear of showing off.
Second, cognitive factors affect students’ silence in Inlit class. The cognitive factors
analyze participants’ ability to respond Inlit material such as poems. In cognitive factors, lack
of schema becomes the core problem of students’ inabilities to analyze poems. Schema
consists of knowledge that participants have already known that help them understand new
informations (Bartlet, 1932). As a result, students are silent because they do not have any
ideas.
The third, fluency factors affect students silence in Inlit class. Students’ silence
appears because of two reasons. The first reason is students’ lack of vocabularies. Second,
participants have ideas but they do not know how to transfer the ideas orally.
The pedagogical implications lay on the lecturer role to challenge students’ silence
inside Intro to Literature class. For example, when students do not have any schemas in
analyzing visual dimension poetry or haikus, lecturer should help students by providing
information and giving examples on how to analyze the poems properly. When students have
a lack of fluency, lecturer should guide students to come up with ideas. After that, lecturers
should guide students to arrange the ideas such as Which students’ ideas meet the poems,
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which students’ ideas are important, which students’ ideas are not important or what students’
ideas should come first, second, last, etc. See appendix B for the examples of pedagogical
implication.
The limitation of this study is this study does not focus on one emerging factor as
socio-psychology factors. Thus the result of this study brought general ideas about factors
affecting students’ silence in Inlit class. I believe my study is not yet perfect, so, further study
on factors affecting students’ silence in content courses focusing on one factor need to be
conducted.
25
FACTORS AFFECTING STUDENTS’ SILENCE IN INLIT CLASS
Acknowledgements
I owe my deepest gratitude to my beloved parents, Pak Sakinun and Ibu Suparmi for
their faith on my successful life in the future. I am so thankful to my patient and wise
supervisor, Mrs. Nugrahenny T. Zacharias, PhD who gives me rich assistance, enlightenment,
supports and guidance. I would also thankful of Allah SWT for the spirit given to me. I am so
thankful to my examiner, Ms Danielle Donelson Sims, M.A. because of her assistance in her
busy days, my thesis have completed. Special thanks to my today boyfriend, Zaenal Abidin.
Let’s God decide our destiny. Besides that I have to thank to all my juniors, Roni, Bima,
Nanda, Agam, Feby, Fiona, Raras, Dian, Anita, Luci, Krisma, Arinta, Jo, Fitriana, and Ninit.
I would also like to show my appreciation to all my friends who support me spiritually,
mentally and academically, Kiki, Tyas, Nining, Sari (아주마), Dahlia (FPsi), Kar-kar,
Umalila, Vinsensa, Hanung, Puput, Retno (FTI), Puput (FPsi) and all EDS members. Last but
not least I want to thank to all Japanese and Korean artists who ease the stressful of thesis.
They are YGEntertainment, SMEntertainment, CUBE, Miss A, 2AM, Starship, Shinhwa, Tara, BEG, Pledis, 비, YamaPi, Shota shimizu, AKB 48, 2AM, and many more. Lastly, I have
to proud of myself that able to finish this thesis.
26
FACTORS AFFECTING STUDENTS’ SILENCE IN INLIT CLASS
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Bradford, R. (2011). Graphics poetics: Poetry as a visual art. Continuum International
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Cabin, P. (2004). Identitas dan tindakan kolektif: pembahasan bersama AllesandronPizarro
[Identity and collective behavior: A discussion with Allesandro Pizarro]. In P. Cabin
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29
Introduction
Students’ silence in learning English has become a paramount issue addressed in an
ESL/EFL classroom. From the year 1985s’ (Tannen, 1985) until today research upon silence
has never come to an end. At the beginning, studies on silence investigated silence
phenomenon based on the person country origin such as New Yorkers or Californian. Tannen
(1985) argued that New Yorkers silence Canadians because New Yorkers talk a lot more than
Canadians. In 1990s the research developed to ESL and EFL classroom in which silence
appeared because of geographic positions such as Asian students. For example, Chinese were
considered reticence because of the Confusian belief. However, in early 2000, Cheng argued
against the allegation saying that even though Confusian exist, the belief never taught them to
remain silent.
Five years after that, the students’ silence research was developed in ESL / EFL
classroom, for example in a speaking class (Liu, 2005). A few years later, research upon
students’ silence is conducted by combining anxiety and reticence (Lu, Zhang, & Lu, 2011).
The previous studies showed that factors affecting silence were complex. Unfortunately,
there is a few research concern in content courses class. Thus, there is lack of finding about
silence appears in content course. That is why I conduct research on students’ silence.
I remember my past experience joining an Intro to Literature (Inlit) class. The lecturer
invited students to be active by asking questions, for example is there any opinion? Or do you
agree with your friends’ opinion? Sometimes, he provided an interesting activity to invite
students to speak. Even so, I became silent because of my smarter peer’s ability. My smarter
peer was named Dia (a pseudonym). Dia and I joined the same English club in the English
Department named English Debating Society (EDS). Dia’s greater ability was the reason for
my silence.
7
FACTORS AFFECTING STUDENTS’ SILENCE IN INLIT CLASS
As an EDS member, Dia was an outstanding member because she had better critical
thinking and greater knowledge than me. She knew current issues very well. As an Inlit
student, she was great too. In all of Dia’s active participations, she could support her ideas
with reliable supporting details such as giving the background of the writers, connecting to
the current conditions and etc.
Many times I found myself silent when I knew she had given a comment before I had
opportunity to comment. I realized that my comment was worse than her. Instead of speaking
and being ashamed by providing trivial ideas, I remained silent. Because I did not want to be
judged as a low competence student by Dia. Therefore, my silence appeared because of my
smarter peer’s presence and my fear of being judged as a low competence student. As Morita
(2004) said, smart students’ presence make other students silent. Furthermore, the fear of
being negatively judged as a low competence student, creates a student silence (Ohata, 2005).
Because of my past experience as a silent student in Inlit class, I conduct research on
factors affecting students’ silence in Inlit class. My study aimed to answer my research
question about factors affecting students’ silence in Inlit class. The research question is what
factors affecting students’ silence in Inlit class.
Although many researches on students’ silence have been conducteded, my research
is still needed. Previous research on students’ silence was dominated by two kinds of
research. First, the research was conducted in English classroom such as oral language
classroom (Liu, 2005), EFL classroom (Liu & Jackson, 2009), and Hongkong English
classroom (Tong, 2010). Other researches on students’ silence investigated Asian students’
who study in English speaking countries such as Australia (Marlina, 2009) and London (Ping,
2010). However, only few researches were conducted on students’ silence within content
courses in Indonesia.
8
FACTORS AFFECTING STUDENTS’ SILENCE IN INLIT CLASS
I think it is important to know about the differences especially in Indonesia because
nearly all population in Indonesian learns English in Indonesia. Also, nearly all Indonesian
teachers teach Indonesian students. Thus, this research will help both teachers and learner to
picture factors affecting students’ silence in content course.
Theoretical framework
In the past few years, there are growing attentions to examine students’ silent in the
field of education.
Based on Inlit handbook academic year 2011/ 2012 students are
demanded to be active in various occasions. They are classroom discussions, group
discussions, individual or group presentations, commenting to topics, reacting to other peers’
utterances, nominating by the lecturer, and etc. Students’ silences appear when students did
not join active participations. Thus, I use Nakane (2007)’s definition that meet classroom
participations in Inlit classes. She defines students’ silence as “… silent response, not
participating in specific participant structures, or not participating in interaction on specific
topics, or not taking certain speakers roles, or not performing certain speech acts...” (p.198).
The first factor affecting students’ silence is socio-psychology factors. The sociopsychology factors consist of students interaction with classmates (e.g: friendship), and
students’ attitude toward their classmates (eg: smart peers, silence peers, and etc.). Reflecting
on my past silence experience in Inlit class, I believed that Dia was smarter than me. Also,
she was more knowledgeable and fluent than me. Jaworski and Sachdev (1998) stated that
people who have greater power in class silence people who have lower power. Thus, Morita
(2004) said that students who underestimated their selves as unintelligent and not smart could
become silent.
Another socio-psychology factor affecting students silence is culture (Nakane, 2007).
Some researchers are against the idea that culture plays a role in students’ silence (Cheng,
2000; Marlina, 2009). Unfortunately, Ping (2010) who joins for two-month study in the
9
FACTORS AFFECTING STUDENTS’ SILENCE IN INLIT CLASS
London Metropolitan University said differently. He admitted that the “Mianzi culture”
hindered him to actively contribute. Moreover, Nakane (2007) figured out the meaning of
silence was different from one culture to another. She explained that silence can show power
in one culture whereas in another culture it means rejection to a proposal.
In community context, the silent attitude is an expression of copying others. It can be
a form of looking for recognition from the majorities (Cabin, 2000) or it is a form of
maintaining solidarities (Nakane, 2007). Next, students became silent because of the anxiety
of getting a bad impression from classmates such as looking for lecturer’s attention or having
low proficiency. Weedon (1987), as cited in Peirce (1995), stated that social identities are a
form of action to adjust behavior to meet with the social condition. Ohata (2005) added that
students remain silent because they fear being judged as low competence students. Besides
that, fear of not fulfilling the lecturer’s expectation (Tsui, 1996) and fear to produce
misunderstands utterances (Ping, 2010) triggered students’ silence. In contrast, Liu, Zhang, &
Lu (2011) found that active students turn into silent ones because they do not want to show
off.
The second factor affecting students’ silence is cognition. What I mean by cognitive
factors are the inability of students to interact, analyze, and criticize the Inlit materials. To be
able to interact, analyze, and criticize the Inlit materials, students need to understand and
familiarize themselveswith the topic. Thus, students who are not familiar with the topic being
discussed can become silent. Thornbury (2005) stated that students who are unfamiliar with
the topic are likely to be silent.
Besides that, the background knowledge or schema is needed to connect information
that students already knew with the new information that they will adsorb (Bartler, 1932).
Nakane (2007) added that students’ silence can also appear because students lack schema. In
terms of analysis, Laszlo (1987) argued that poems that consist of an unordinary idea, need
10
FACTORS AFFECTING STUDENTS’ SILENCE IN INLIT CLASS
more analysis to figure out the literature work. According to McRae, 1991 as cited in
Sivasubramaniam, 2006, stated that students who are not interested in materials can resist
from actively engages with the materials. Thus, some students are reluctant to participate, so
that they will not be judged as foolish.
The third factor affecting students’ silence is fluency. Fluency factors include ability
to master vocabularies and an ability to produce utterances. Liu (2005) said that one of the
reasons for students silence is caused by the lack of mastering vocabularies. Silences happen
because of students’ failure to arrange ideas. The low competence students are afraid of
presenting insufficient utterances (Kurihara, 2006). All in all students who worried over
grammars, vocabularies, phonology structures, and how to arrange ideas will have a tendency
to remain silent (Ali, 2007).
The presentation of the theoretical framework of factors affecting students’ silence is
made in the form of a table. The following table is the summary of factors affecting students’
Table 1: Factors affecting students’ silence.
Categories
Socio-psychology factor
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
Cognitive factor
Fluency factor
8.
1.
2.
3.
1.
2.
3.
Students reason of being silent
Smarter students silence less smart students.
Students underestimate their own ability.
Culture affects students’ silence.
Students look for recognition of others by silence.
Students maintain solidarity by silence.
Students fear being judged as low competence
students when they speak.
Students fear of not fulfilling the teacher expectations
when they speak.
Students fear of showing off when they speak.
Students are unfamiliar with the topic.
Students do not have schema.
Students are not interested in the topic.
Students lack vocabularies.
Students are afraid of not presenting sufficient
utterances.
Students can not convey ideas properly.
11
FACTORS AFFECTING STUDENTS’ SILENCE IN INLIT CLASS
The study
In this section, I will discuss the context of the study, the participants, the procedure
of data collections and the data analysis.
Context of the study
My research took place in Satya Wacana Christian University (SWCU) Salatiga. To
be specific, the study is done in the Introduction to Literature class English Department
faculty of language and literature. Inlit class is the prerequisite class for the next literature
classes, prose, poetry, and drama class. Here, Inlit consists of various kinds of literature
material such as prose, poems and drama.
This class is dominated with 2009ers students. Even so, there are no restricted classes
of students to join this class. The youngest students come from 2010ers, and the oldest were
2006ers. This class is offered every year in the even semester.
In Inlit class, students are expected to actively participate both orally and through
written participations. Every meeting, students are obliged to submit journals according to the
material that will be discussed in class. Students need to report the journal they have written
orally. Students have the opportunity to speak in whole class discussion, group discussion,
individual, and presentations.
In Inlit class students’ oral responses are done willingly. The lecturer rarely nominates
their students to answer. Lecturer nominates students to speak if the class is being silent and
no one is willing to give the oral contribution.
Participants
In this opportunity, the participants are fifteen students in the English department of
Satya Wacana Christian University who enrolled in the Inlit class on the even semester
academic year 2011-2012. Those 15 students were selected based on a random sampling
(McKay, 2006) from 4 different Inlit classes. From my participants’ explanation, various
12
FACTORS AFFECTING STUDENTS’ SILENCE IN INLIT CLASS
silences are gathered. There are silent students, rather silent students, rather active students or
active students.
Instrument of data collection
For the instrument of data collection, I use semi-structure interviews (McKay, 2006).
The semi-structured interview is an interview that consists of the same questions but the
structured of the questions being asked is flexible according to the participants’ responses.
The interview is conducted in the middle or nearly the end of Inlit class period. Precisely, the
interviews are hold from April to June 2011. The time of the interview is based on the
participants’ free time. The length of interview is around 10 to 15 minutes. See appendix A
for the complete interview questions.
Procedure of data collection
The data collections started by giving questionnaires to Inlit students. Using the
random sampling, I interview 15 students who willingly joined interview. The interview use
Bahasa Indonesia. Bahasa Indonesia is used in order to make participants easier to express
their opinion and feeling. The three main questions given to participants are: explain your
characteristic in Inlit class, whether you are an active student or a silent student? Have you
ever been silent in Inlit class? What are your reasons for being silent in Inlit class?
Data Analysis
The data analysis starts by reading carefully the clean transcriptions where the focus
of the interview is based on the content of the interview (Zacharias, 2010). After that, similar
data would be gathered into the same categories. The emerging themes were found through
content-analysis (McKay, 2006), where the participants’ comments are the source for the
emerging themes. Based on the participants’ comments, there are three factors affecting
students’ silent, socio-psychology, cognitive, and fluency.
13
FACTORS AFFECTING STUDENTS’ SILENCE IN INLIT CLASS
Findings and Discussion
This chapter talks about the analysis of factors affecting students’ silence in Inlit
class. In this study, there are three emerging themes arranged according to the number of
comments given. The emerging themes are socio-psychology factors, cognitive factors, and
fluency factors.
Socio-psychology factors
The first factor affecting students’ silence is socio-psychology factors. Sociopsychology factors are factors that come from students’ self perceptions and students’
perceptions of peers. The students’ self perceptions include a feeling of having low
competence and fear of making mistakes. The students’ perceptions of others include the fear
of negative opinion from peers such as showing off, does not comfortable, and differ.
To begin analyzing the socio-psychology factors, I found Ninuk and Dana
(pseudonyms) were silent because of smarter peers’ intelligence. The smarter peers’
intelligence is proven by having better grades and greater analysis skills. Ninuk and Dana
thought that smarter peers had more capacity to actively participate instead of them. Here are
Ninuk’s and Dana’s comments:
Sometimes, there are students who are more proficient in the class. They are
good at answering questions. I am a little bit inferior. So, I am silent. His or
her Inlit grade is A. All his/ her journals are perfect
(Ninuk, 5th interview, May 12th 2011 my translation)
Some friends can do in depth- analysis on poems and short stories. They
could analyze deeply….If I answer, my analysis is very different.
(Dana 7 th interview, May 12th 2012, my translation)
The data above shows that Dana and Ninuk are silent because they thought smarter
peers are better than them. Ninuk described smarter peers were those who had better grades
14
FACTORS AFFECTING STUDENTS’ SILENCE IN INLIT CLASS
and are more fluent than her. Dana described smart peers were those who could make deep
analysis of poems or short stories. Ninuk and Dana considered smarter peers were more
powerful to control their active contributions instead of them.
According to Ninuk’s and Dana’s data stated that smart’s peers are able to make indepth analysis and have better grades, so according to them smart students deserve to speak
instead of “unintelligent” students. Morita (2004) explained that smart students present
silences students who thought themselves as not smart students. Morita continues, non-smart
students judged themselves as not intelligent and competent as smarter students. Ohata
(2005) stated that students become silent if they fear being valued as low competence
students.
On the other occasion, Dana is silent because she feared making peers and the lecturer
difficult in understanding her utterances:
If I explained in long sentences that lecturer and peers do not understand, I
make mistakes. It is better for me to keep silent.
(Dana, May 12th 2011, my translation)
The above excerpt implies that Dana’s silence is much affected by fear of making
mistakes. Dana’s also fears making the lecturer or peers do not understand her utterances.
Furthermore, she was afraid if she could not satisfy the lecturer’s and friends’ expectations to
provide comprehensible utterances, so she became silent. Tsui (1996) comments that students
are afraid and became silent if they cannot answer as expected by the lecturer. Ping (2010)
noticed that students became silent because they fear making misunderstood utterances.
Morita (2004) added that students who realize they have a low competence would remain
silent because they fear that the teacher judges them as incompetent.
One of my participants, Nana, recalls her relationship with her close friends in Inlit
class. She reported that her close friends’ silent attitude influence herself to be silent.
15
FACTORS AFFECTING STUDENTS’ SILENCE IN INLIT CLASS
I am in the same class with my close friends….They pay attention to the
lesson. They could not be disturbed. They speak only once or twice if
needed. However, it rarely happened. It is weird [to speak alone] like a crazy
person ….It influences me to be silent.
(Nana, 11th interview May 31 st, 2011 my translation)
The above excerpt implies that silence resulted from the close relationship of Nana
and her friends. In that relation, Nana is the one who wants to be active, whereas her close
friends are silent. She thought that being silent was more “normal” than joining the active
participation. That condition triggered Nana to imitate her close friends by being silent. The
silence is an action to maintain harmony with her close friends.
For Nana, it is important to keep the harmony with her close friends by being silent.
Because it shows that she belongs to the close friends’ relationship. Cabin (2000) stated that
people adjust their behavior to community behavior in order to be recognized as the member
of the community.
Apart from the above analysis, some researchers neglect the role of culture that make
students silent. Through Dina’s explanation, I notice that culture also takes part in students’
silence. The following is Dina’s comment about her silence that is affected by culture.
I feel bored. Because students who speak always the same. So, If I want to
speak more I am uncomfortable….If I am always active, in Javanese we call
it “rikuh”.
(Dina, April 16th 2011 my translation)
The above excerpt explained that Dina get bored because of the limited students who
wanted to be active. Furthermore, she recognized that the Javanese culture of ‘rikuh’
influence her silence. As a Javanese, I define ‘rikuh’ as uncomfortable and uneasy feeling
because of one’s own capabilities to not adjust with the situation. Based on Dina’s comment,
16
FACTORS AFFECTING STUDENTS’ SILENCE IN INLIT CLASS
her frequent active participations were considered wrong. To overcome the ‘rikuh’ feeling,
she tried to adapt with the classroom situation by being silent.
In terms of culture, Nakane (2007) explained that the meaning of silence is different
from one culture to another. She explained that a silence in social context means avoiding
conflicts and imposition. Another culture values silence to show power. Dina upheld the
‘rikuh’ from Javanese culture. The ‘rikuh’ belief’s force her to adjust her active contributions
into passive contributions which is silence. In connection to previous statements, Nana’s and
Dina’s silence was a form of maintaining solidarity with peers (Nakane, 2007).
The next participant, Gama (a pseudonym) is silent because he was afraid of being
negatively judged as looking for the lecturer’s attention.
Once or twice, I will try to be active. But if it is done too frequent, it leaves
impression that only I want to speak. Not all my friends like me. I am afraid
if they might think my active participation as a form of grabbing teacher
attention. That perception could influence my active participation.
(Gama, 10th interview, May 17th 2011 my translation)
The above excerpt shows that Gama’s peers are likely to be silent instead of actively
engaging in the oral participation. In contrast, Gama proclaimed himself as an active student
who likes to take part in active contributions. Gama became silent because he was cautious of
peers’ negative opinion such as seeking lecturer’s attentions. Gama’s data excerpt was inline
with Liu, Zhang, and Lu (2011) who stated that active students become silent because they do
not want to be judged as showing off.
17
FACTORS AFFECTING STUDENTS’ SILENCE IN INLIT CLASS
Cognitive factors
The second factor affecting students’ silence is cognition. The cognitive factors
include the ability to analyze Inlit materials such as poems. By using the literature text,
Halasz (1987) expected readers to be able to comprehend literature work and correlate the
text with cognitive and social psychology. To be able to analyze properly, Gama, Ani and
Dana (pseudonyms) are expected to have enough schemas toward materials they read.
Participants have a high possibility of being silent if they do not have any schema or
background knowledge of the poems being discussed.
According to the participants, the visual dimension poetry and haiku poem influence
their silence. Visual dimension poetry is poetry that focuses on the shapes and signs to
convey its meaning (Bohn, 2001). According to Thunman (1991), haiku is a Japanese poem
that consists of seventeen syllables that usually talks about nature.
One participant, Gama admitted that he meets an obstacle understanding a visual
dimension poetry entitled “A leaf falls on loneliness”. The following is Gama’s comment on
difficulties to analyze visual dimension poems that silence him.
[To interpret a poem] Sometimes one word does not only have dictionary
meaning. Sometimes one word can be interpreted in different ways.
Especially, poems from foreign country, the poets’ way of thinking are
different from the poets here. I do not know the foreign culture of foreign
poets. [For example] A particular word would have a different meaning.
That is the difficult part….A leaf falls on loneliness [title of a poem], I do
not even know how to read that.
(Gama, 5th interview, May 17th 2011 my translation)
18
FACTORS AFFECTING STUDENTS’ SILENCE IN INLIT CLASS
The following poem is the example of a poem that Gama found a problem interpreting
the poem.
Poetry – Visual Dimension
1(a… (a leaf falls on loneliness)
E.E Cummnings
1(a
le
af
fa
ll
s)
one
l
iness
(Bradford, 2011 p.32)
The above displayed data explained that Gama’s inability to read ‘A leaf falls on
loneliness’ is not because he was illiterate. According to the display of the poem, the word is
arranged to a certain extent that it could not be understood easily. Since Gama did not have
any schema related to visual dimension poetry, he just read accordingly. Gama was silent
because he lack the schema on how to read the poem. As a result he could not analyze the
poem or give oral participation. From Gama’s data excerpt, Laszlo (1987) supported that
literature works bring unordinary ideas, so it should be analyzed carefully. When Gama
could not find out visual dimension poem ideas, he became silent.
Moreover, Ani became silent not only in visual dimension poems but also in
discussing haiku. She could not participate orally because she had low cognitive competence
to relate poems or short stories with real life. Her lack of knowledge toward visual dimension
and haiku are expressed as follows:
I do not understand the meaning of poems or short stories. I know the story,
but when I was asked to comment further, connect it to real life and
19
FACTORS AFFECTING STUDENTS’ SILENCE IN INLIT CLASS
everything, I can not give comments. Rather than speaking, making mistakes
and the meaning is too far, It is better for me to listen to the other students’
opinion…. [In a poem entitled book] What if my imagination is low? What
should I do? How a butterfly can be a book? Confusing isn’t it! This one
[1(a… (a leaf falls on loneliness)] and signs like this [Justice]. I do not
understand.
(Ani, June 9th 2011 my translation)
Besides “A leaf falls on loneliness”, Ani had difficulties analyzing poem entitled
“Justice” and “Book”. I present poems as follow:
Justice
It’s understandable;
what with those
awful murders in lpswich
and that poor girl just
yards from her home.
The stabbings
the shooting
the rapes,
yeah,it’s understandable.
But should this really
be the b(#) line ?
o(#)
t (#)
t (#)
o (#)
m(#)
(#)
(#)
(#)
(#)
(#)
(#)
(#)
(#)
(#)
(#)
(#)
(Inlit material p.37)
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FACTORS AFFECTING STUDENTS’ SILENCE IN INLIT CLASS
Book
Tatsuji Miyoshi
A butterfly, a white book
A butterfly, a light book
It dances up a dune
Stiching the horizon.
(Inlit material p. 39)
Ani’s silence was started by not understanding the visual dimension poetry and haiku.
Furthermore, she could not relate the poem with real life. Those happened because she lacked
the schema related to the visual dimension poetry and haiku. Ani feared producing
insufficient errors and mistakes when she was interpreting poems or delivering comments.
Ping (2010) states that students prefer silence because they do not want to appear foolish.
Dana has the similar opinion with Ani. Dana found difficulty to relate real life with
the visual dimension poetry and haiku.
…I do not really understand what the poet means in his/ her poem. Because
poem is abstract….for example this poem [poems entitled The Deer, Book by
Tatsuji miyoji]. They are unclear and haiku. Still, I have to be creative [to
analyze the poem]. I can not do that.
(Dana, may 12th 2011)
Dana faces obstacles in analyzing poems entitled “Book” and “The Deer” written by
Tatsuji Miyoshi.
I will attach the poem entitled “The deer” because “Book” has been
attached in page 15 and 16. Here is the poem:
The Deer
Tatsuji Miyoshi
In the morning in a forest a deer is crouching.
Upon his shoulders, the shadow of his horns.
A single deerfly cuts across the space of the breeze and hovers
Close to his ears as they listen to a far-off river valley (Thunman,1991 p. 24)
Dana’s interview excerpt implies that Dana’s silence was much affected by her
unfamiliarity of the visual dimension poetry and haiku. Consequently, she could not develop
21
FACTORS AFFECTING STUDENTS’ SILENCE IN INLIT CLASS
her creativity to analyze the poem. The inability to analyze the visual dimension poetry and
haiku happened because she did not have any schema.
Generally speaking, Ani’s and Dana’s silence happen because they are unfamiliar
with the visual dimension poetry and haiku. Thornbury (2005) said that speaking can be
difficult when the speaker is not familiar with the topic. To analyze the poems participants
need to be involved and interact with the poem.
In cognitive theme, schema is the basic requirements to be able to read, understand,
and analyze literature works such as poem and prose. According to Nakane (2007)
participants tend to be silent if they do not have enough schemas. The schema is needed
because it connects students’ previous knowledge with new information that students will
receive (Bartler, 1932).
Fluency
The third emerging theme related to factors affecting students silence is fluency. What
I mean by fluency is the ability to process information and participants’ ability to maintain
oral participation.
Nita (a pseudonym) found that the difficulty to express her thoughts hindered her
active contribution in class discussion. When Nita did not have the exact English vocabulary
to replace her ideas, thus Nita becomes reluctant to participate.
Sometimes, I want [to speak] like this but there is no appropriate answer.
What is the word? How I should say it? What is the correct [vocabularies]? I
want to say “A” but it comes out different. How about the vocabularies and
words arrangement?
(Nita, 14th interview, May 12th 2011 my translation)
The above excerpt implies that Nita is always looking for exact vocabularies to
replace her ideas. Besides that, she confuses of how words were supposed to be arranged.
22
FACTORS AFFECTING STUDENTS’ SILENCE IN INLIT CLASS
Once, she tried to speak, but she failed to convey her ideas into English. Reflecting on her
previous experience, she refrained from speaking when she realized that she did not have the
exact words to express her ideas. Kurihara (2006) said that students are being silent because
of fear of failure to convey ideas. Ali (2007) said that students remain reticent when students
worry about how to use grammars, vocabularies, phonology, and how to arrange ideas.
Another participant, Ririn commented on her silence when she had difficulties to
arrange ideas. The excerpt below is Ririn’s comment on her silence that happened because of
difficulties to utter ideas.
Sometimes I got stuck on English vocabularies. I have not really mastered
vocabularies. In my mind, there are ideas but the ideas are difficult to come
out. The effect is I get confused myself to explain in sentence.
(Ririn, April 11th, 2011 my translation)
The above excerpt revealed Ririn’s silence that resulted from her confusion to express
her thoughts. It was not simply because she did not have ideas, but because she had limited
vocabularies. Because of her lack of English vocabularies, she could not appropriately
transfer the mother tongue idea into English.
Mastering vocabularies are the backbone to formulate ideas and to join oral
participations (Liu, 2005). When there are no appropriate vocabularies, ideas could not
appear. There are times participants are silent because they could not transfer ideas into
English. Tsui (1996) said that students became silent when they could not transfer the ideas
properly.
23
FACTORS AFFECTING STUDENTS’ SILENCE IN INLIT CLASS
Conclusion and pedagogical Implication
In this study I investigated factors affecting students’ silence in Intro to literature class
(Inlit). Through this study, I have learnt that some students have more than one factor
affecting their silence in Inlit class. The study found three factors affecting students’ silence.
The factors are socio-psychology factors, cognitive factors, and fluency factors.
The first finding shows that socio-psychology factors affect students’ silence in Inlit
class. The socio-psychology factors closely relate to situations of classroom and peers’ ability
that affect students’ silence in Inlit class. The socio-psychology factors include smarter peers’
presence, fear of making mistakes, fear of not fulfilling lecturer expectations, acts of
maintaining solidarity and fear of showing off.
Second, cognitive factors affect students’ silence in Inlit class. The cognitive factors
analyze participants’ ability to respond Inlit material such as poems. In cognitive factors, lack
of schema becomes the core problem of students’ inabilities to analyze poems. Schema
consists of knowledge that participants have already known that help them understand new
informations (Bartlet, 1932). As a result, students are silent because they do not have any
ideas.
The third, fluency factors affect students silence in Inlit class. Students’ silence
appears because of two reasons. The first reason is students’ lack of vocabularies. Second,
participants have ideas but they do not know how to transfer the ideas orally.
The pedagogical implications lay on the lecturer role to challenge students’ silence
inside Intro to Literature class. For example, when students do not have any schemas in
analyzing visual dimension poetry or haikus, lecturer should help students by providing
information and giving examples on how to analyze the poems properly. When students have
a lack of fluency, lecturer should guide students to come up with ideas. After that, lecturers
should guide students to arrange the ideas such as Which students’ ideas meet the poems,
24
FACTORS AFFECTING STUDENTS’ SILENCE IN INLIT CLASS
which students’ ideas are important, which students’ ideas are not important or what students’
ideas should come first, second, last, etc. See appendix B for the examples of pedagogical
implication.
The limitation of this study is this study does not focus on one emerging factor as
socio-psychology factors. Thus the result of this study brought general ideas about factors
affecting students’ silence in Inlit class. I believe my study is not yet perfect, so, further study
on factors affecting students’ silence in content courses focusing on one factor need to be
conducted.
25
FACTORS AFFECTING STUDENTS’ SILENCE IN INLIT CLASS
Acknowledgements
I owe my deepest gratitude to my beloved parents, Pak Sakinun and Ibu Suparmi for
their faith on my successful life in the future. I am so thankful to my patient and wise
supervisor, Mrs. Nugrahenny T. Zacharias, PhD who gives me rich assistance, enlightenment,
supports and guidance. I would also thankful of Allah SWT for the spirit given to me. I am so
thankful to my examiner, Ms Danielle Donelson Sims, M.A. because of her assistance in her
busy days, my thesis have completed. Special thanks to my today boyfriend, Zaenal Abidin.
Let’s God decide our destiny. Besides that I have to thank to all my juniors, Roni, Bima,
Nanda, Agam, Feby, Fiona, Raras, Dian, Anita, Luci, Krisma, Arinta, Jo, Fitriana, and Ninit.
I would also like to show my appreciation to all my friends who support me spiritually,
mentally and academically, Kiki, Tyas, Nining, Sari (아주마), Dahlia (FPsi), Kar-kar,
Umalila, Vinsensa, Hanung, Puput, Retno (FTI), Puput (FPsi) and all EDS members. Last but
not least I want to thank to all Japanese and Korean artists who ease the stressful of thesis.
They are YGEntertainment, SMEntertainment, CUBE, Miss A, 2AM, Starship, Shinhwa, Tara, BEG, Pledis, 비, YamaPi, Shota shimizu, AKB 48, 2AM, and many more. Lastly, I have
to proud of myself that able to finish this thesis.
26
FACTORS AFFECTING STUDENTS’ SILENCE IN INLIT CLASS
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