Re-examining "silence"

As part of a larger study exploring academic discourse socialization of a group of students from diverse academic and cultural backgrounds in an international TESOL graduate program in a Canadian university focusing on how they participate in class, how they perceive different modes of participation of other students in the class, and how this affects their academic discourse socialization process, this study explores 12 EAL students’ “silence”/non-oral participation. The study finds that EAL students’ “silence” or non-participation was reflection of different factors such as language related issues, concerns about other students, lack of content knowledge, and personality. It was often the case that students’ “silence” and/or non-oral participation was a result of combination of those factors. Implications for classroom practices and for meeting EAL students’ needs are also discussed.