Silence is a common phenomenon in English classes in rural middle schools. Silence is sometimes short and sometimes long. In fact, silence does not mean the failure of teaching. But we must fully understand silence and allow it to exist. We should also wait patiently for students to "explode" from "silence".

1. Silence phenomenon

1. 1 short silence

There is a brief silence, or it may be that students are thinking actively. Although they didn't say anything, their brains were actively thinking. We'd better not interrupt the students, we should give them enough time to think. This kind of silence is common in classroom teaching. If we don't handle it properly, students will stop thinking positively. They think that teachers can answer questions by themselves, so that students will lose the opportunity to exercise their thinking.

1.2 Absolute silence?

This phenomenon is usually caused by the teacher, because our teacher did not fully consider the actual situation and the students' reality, and there was a difficult problem, which caused most students to be unable to answer and led to absolute silence.

1.3 Long silence

The students have formed the habit of silence. There will be silence in every class. Both teachers and students are used to this phenomenon. If we still ignore its existence, then we are really in a passive position.

2. Reasons for silence

Through research, it is found that the reasons for silence are far more complicated than we seem. Psychology, national characteristics and traditional ideas all play an important role in silence.

2. 1 traditional ideas

In rural areas, it is generally believed that when teachers explain texts in class, students' silence is a respect for teachers. Anyone who dares to go against this idea is considered a bad student. So it is not difficult to understand why students in China regard the classroom as a place where teachers impart knowledge and students listen to teachers. Few students interrupt or doubt the teacher's point of view in class.

2.2 Anxiety

For students, anxiety presents different characteristics. When using a foreign language, anxiety will be related to students' lack of knowledge. Anxiety is also related to introverted personality, teachers' expectations and sense of accomplishment.

2.3 Lack of language knowledge

Weak basic knowledge is not only detrimental to the sustainable development of English learning, but also to the cultivation of application ability. Therefore, attention should be paid to the development of students' intellectual and non-intellectual factors in primary and secondary schools, and English teaching in primary schools must enable students to master language knowledge firmly. Many excellent students enter county middle schools, which leads to poor English foundation of rural middle school students.

3. Ways to deal with silence

Teachers should try to make students "enjoy the discussion" instead of being punished by it. Of course, we should also encourage positive silence and break the negative silence. Although we allow students to remain silent in English class, if we do this for a long time, it will lead to the expansion of student differences. Therefore, we should find ways to make more students interested in speaking, have the courage to speak and have content to speak, and reduce the negative silence in English class.

3. 1 from "silence" to "silence"-give students a sense of closeness.

Teachers should first be able to talk with students kindly. "Establish a harmonious relationship between teachers and students". Nowadays, rural middle school students are mostly left-behind children, lacking communication with grandparents and introverted. Teachers should have heart-to-heart communication with students and become their friends.

3.2 "Be brave, we believe you"-Give students a sense of security.

This sentence is very important for rural middle school students, especially senior three students. They are always worried that their answers are not accurate enough and they are afraid of being laughed at by other students. Therefore, it is necessary to create a safe problem environment for students to treat calmly and frankly, think positively and express their opinions boldly.

3.3 "This answer is wonderful, you are great!" -Give students a sense of accomplishment.

Teachers should give timely affirmation to students' progress and unique performance at critical moments, even if it is a small progress. Establish students' self-confidence and let silence disappear from English class.

4. Concluding remarks

There is always a process to solve the problem, and everything can't be smooth sailing. In the face of difficult problems, students' silence does not mean that students will not. They may be thoughtless, so they lack confidence, or they may be waiting for other students' speeches to enlighten them. We should bravely face the students' silence. Infect students with teachers' rich knowledge, give full play to teachers' leading role, conduct positive language guidance, help students get out of the learning dilemma, ignite the sparks of students' thinking, let students break out in silence, and make classroom teaching wonderful because of silence.