Teacher’s and Students’ Perceptions of Teaching Techniques Used to Encourage Silent Students to Speak in a Senior High School EFL Classroom

Agustin Shilan Khafsah, Hamiddin Hamiddin, Yahya Alaydrus

Abstract


Students' silence is a common phenomenon in EFL classrooms, where many students are reluctant to participate during speaking activities. Therefore, this study aims to investigate the teaching technique used by a teacher to encourage silent students’ participation, explore how these techniques influence students’ participations, identifies the challenges faced by the teacher, and how students’ perceptions of those techniques in a senior high EFL classroom setting. Using a qualitative single case study design, data were collected through classroom observations and semi-structured interviews with one English teacher and two silent students, at one public senior high school in Singosari, Malang, Indonesia, in class XI-B. The finding showed that the teacher employed direct questioning, wait time, scaffolding, pair work, game-based activities, video recording, and rewarding. These techniques gradually improved students’ participation in both positive and negative ways. The teacher also faced several challenges, such as students’ psychological factors, students’ linguistic factor, lack of interest in some topics, and different levels of energy depending on the class schedule. Students perceived that some techniques were monotonous but acknowledged vocabulary gains from the activities. The study concludes that teachers need to use a variety of teaching techniques and create a supportive classroom environment to encourage silent EFL students to participate more actively in speaking activities.

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References


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