Investigating the reasons behind EFL university student's silence in translation classes : a field study

Abstract EN

Silence has become a crucial topic of research, especially at the university level, where it occurs frequently among EFL students.

The aim of this study is to recognize the reasons behind students' silence in translation classes at university level and to pinpoint the differences in this respect in terms of students' gender and study stage.

Three main research questions were posed: (1) What are the reasons behind students' silence in Translation classes? (2) How does the teacher resolve students' silence in such classes? and (3) How does the lecturer motivate students to not be silent in Translation classes? It is hypothesized that (1) Students in translation classes keep silent due to varied personal, social and academic factors that encourage them to do so; (2) There are no differences between EFL university male and female students in terms of keeping silent in translation classes; and (3) There are no differences between 2nd stage and 4th stage EFL university students in terms of keeping silent in translation classes.

The study's participants were students enrolled in the Dept.

of Translation, College of Arts, University of Mosul during the second semester of the academic year 2018-2019.

They were given a questionnaire that subsumed (20) items closely related to the preceding research questions.

On the basis of the participants' responses, it was found out that a set of varied reasons are behind students' silence in translation classes.

Added to that, the responses revealed that students vary in terms of silence according to their gender, while the study stage has no role in students' variation in this respect.