This study reviews the current body of research into reasons for Japanese university students' reluctance toward spoken class participation in English, along with a critical review of general teaching suggestions for encouraging participation. It then identifies the limitations of teaching strategies that may not take into account certain reasons for their silence, which may be rooted in the Japanese communication style or educational background rather than confidence or language ability. This paper aims to make use of these reasons to identify concrete, bottom-up participation skills that are more grounded in Japanese culture and communication style differences, and to provide related teaching suggestions. While this paper aims to address the issues affecting Japanese students, the implications can be applied to other East Asian students whose verbal participation may be affected by similar cultural factors.