proficiency level and factors fostering reticence in efl learners

according to cheng (1999), in recent esl/efl literature, asian (especially east asian) learners of english as a foreign/second language have been arguably reported as reticent and passive learners. the most common allegations are that these students are reluctant to participate in classroom discourse; they are unwilling to give responses; they do not ask questions; and they are passive and over-dependent on the teacher (jones et al.,1993; braddock et al., 1995; cortazzi and jin, 1996; tsui, 1996). the present study examined “reticence” in english language classes which has long been a challenge for both professors and students. with the advent of new language teaching methodologies, there is a pressing need for efl instructors to help reticent students put their problems aside to be able to have an active role in oral activities of the class. this study was an attempt to: first, find the relationship between the level of language proficiency and reticence; second, find other important factors fostering reticence. the data were collected during one whole semester from university students and they were analyzed based on statistics by the help of spss software. the results have shown that proficiency level of the learners’ influence their reticence level and the higher the language proficiency level, the better oral performance in the classroom. also, another influencing factor called teacher interactional/instructional strategies was found to be effective. this is a combination of different teaching strategies a teacher applies in her/his teaching setting which proved to be influential in this study.