Toward Valuing and Hearing Silence in Language Classrooms

This article aims to reveal how facilitators, who are neither teachers nor students, viewed student silence in a Japanese language classroom at an Italian university. Today, most consider student silence as inherently negative; however, silence studies indicate that further exploration is vital to better engage with it, drawing on diverse viewpoints such as those of the facilitators. This article shows that the facilitators strived to remove student silence, regarding it as unwelcome. However, by reflecting on pedagogical influences on us and considering what more wait-time for student silence can do, this article suggests we see silence as a rich communicative and learning resource. With this in mind, we may address student silence more cautiously and meaningfully.