A Classroom Ethnographic Study on Silence among EFL Graduate Students: A Case Study

Abstract

Miscellaneous investigations have been implemented to investigate the factor of silence among Asian students in the ESL and EFL contexts and has generated huge literature most of which is related to ESL/EFL students’ silence because of several cultural and social factors. The study in hand reports on an ethnographic investigation of silence attitudes among Sudanese graduate learners in the EFL graduate linguistics environments with their academic staff in Gezira University, Sudan. The study has exploited a previously developed ethnographic interview protocol as well as observations with EFL graduate students and teachers in the MA linguistics. The researcher has investigated the probable patterns of silence among Sudanese EFL learners, explored the reasons behind this phenomenon and has attempted to trace the cultural interpretations among Sudanese silence. The participants of the study were eleven first-year graduates of English (all 26-38 years old) and 6 professors. The whole sample of the study was from Gezira University situated in the central region of Sudan. Another important factor is that the participants of this study came from different parts of Sudan including Khartoum, Darfur, and Gezira State etc. All the participants have BA and BEd in English language enrolling in Gezira University MA Program. The results of the study representing sufficient empirical proof highlight/emphasize that the Face Negotiation Model (Ting-Toomey 1994; West and Turner 2010; Wang and Yang 2005) indicates that Sudanese students’ silence behaviors are reported to be determined Sudanese cultural factors including its notions of face, sense of impact and infrequent social interactions.