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Cited by 101Multilingual Education and PolicyEFL/ESL Teaching and LearningLinguistics and Education Research

Beliefs about Silence in the Classroom

Jaworski, Adam, Sachdev, Itesh·1998·Language and Education
DOI 10.1080/09500789808666754
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Abstract

A questionnaire methodology was used to elicit beliefs and attitudes about silence in the classroom from 319 students aged between 14-16 in three secondary schools in Wales.The three schools can be described as 'rural','urban-suburban' and 'urban-inner city'. The socio-economic background of the students may be described as mainly 'working class' for the rural and inner-city schools, and 'middle class' for the suburban school. The inner city school had the highest proportion of students who reported ethnolinguistic backgrounds other than Welsh. Our overall finding was that students believed that they were more silent in the classroom than their teachers, complementing earlier findings of ethnographic and discourse analytic studies. We suggest that for pupils silence is the relatively unmarked, underlying linguistic form in the classroom, while for teachers silence is relatively marked and talk is unmarked. Our results also confirmed the relative importance of silence for learning rather than for teaching. Specifically, students believed that they were more silent when learning than their teachers are when teaching. Furthermore, students in the rural and inner-city schools valued silence in the classroom more than the students in the suburban school, which we explain in terms of the social make up of the three schools.

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  • Jaworski and Sachdev emphasized the positive impact of silence in the classroom, as it offers room for undisturbed thinking.

    “Jaworski and Sachdev (1998) emphasized the positive impact of silence in the classroom, as it offers room for undisturbed thinking.”

    From How vocal and silent forms of participation in combination relate to student achievement (2023) · cites this paper as Jaworski and Sachdev, 1998

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Authors
Jaworski, A., & Sachdev, I.
ORCID
Jaworski, Adam
Venue
Language and Education
Publisher
Informa UK Limited
Published
1998-12
Volume
12
Issue
4
Pages
273-292
ISSN
  • 0950-0782 (ISSN-L)
  • 1747-7581
DOI
10.1080/09500789808666754
OpenAlex
W2000703633
Cited by
101
References
0
Citations by year
2026: 5 · 2025: 6 · 2024: 9 · 2023: 7 · 2022: 6 · 2021: 3 · 2020: 15 · 2019: 8 · 2018: 1 · 2017: 6 · 2016: 1 · 2015: 3 · 2014: 5 · 2013: 6 · 2012: 5
FWCI
2.44
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
closed
Locations
Language and Education (publishedVersion)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Linguistics and Language › Multilingual Education and Policy
  • Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › Language and Linguistics › EFL/ESL Teaching and Learning
  • Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › Literature and Literary Theory › Linguistics and Education Research
Keywords
classroom silence, student beliefs, classroom discourse, high school students, rural schools, urban schools, socioeconomic background, Welsh-medium education

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