Breaking the Silence of the
Students in an English Language Class
Caecilia
Tutyandari
Many people believe that teaching is an art. It is not only a matter of what knowledge to deliver, but also it requires someone to be competent in how to deliver knowledge effectively and efficiently. No wonder, then, if so many problems occur. One of the common problems faced by teachers is having passive students. Some teachers consider that the passivity of their students is the hindrance of the learning processes. This passivity is blamed as one of the sources of the failure of the learning. Such situation is very popular among teachers from various levels of education. In other words, wherever we teach, we might find this condition.
It is a kind of gifts for teachers, if they happen to handle a class which has students participating actively in the learning processes. At least, for me, those students bring the class into a ‘lively’ atmosphere. However, that gift does not always come. Teachers sometimes might face the opposite situation in which most, if not all, of the students are only sitting and listening nicely.
In my opinion, one basic factor that affects the students’ passivity is the absence of self-confidence. The problem here is then how to develop students’ self confidence so that the students have more courage to express themselves in English. Here, I would like to share two ways out to this condition, i.e. by activating the students’ prior knowledge and promoting the teacher-student interpersonal relation.
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Tutyyandari, C. (2005, December). Breaking the silence of the students in an English language
class. Paper presented at the 53rd TEFLIN International conference,
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