The dynamic of student silence in Japanese EFL tutorial sessions

Multiple studies on Japanese students’ silence in second-language education focus on the classroom setting, while one-on-one interactions have been largely overlooked. The current research attempts to explore silence that emerges in one-on-one writing tutoring sessions. This study was designed as exploratory and qualitative, with two groups of participants, Japanese tutees (N 9) and mostly non-Japanese tutors (N 5).Two main instruments included video-recorded tutoring session observations and interviews with a Stimulated Recall component. The researcher recorded tutoring sessions and conducted Stimulated Recall interviews showing participants excerpts from the observation recordings. The data from the observations was transcribed using Conversation Analysis, a method that allows measuring small pauses and non-verbal responses. The interview and observation data were then cross-referenced and analyzed using theme-based coding. This study found that Japanese tutees tended to be more tolerant of silence compared to non-Japanese tutors. Most of non-Japanese tutors reported nervousness when they faced silent behaviors from tutees, whereas most of the tutees did not think that the silent behavior was awkward or uncomfortable. The paper concludes by listing suggestions on how to mitigate the possible negative effects of silence in tutoring.