Nonverbal Teacher-student Communication in the Foreign Language Classroom

#CCU 7

As English teachers, our aim to teach language, especially a foreign language, is to teach the students how to use language to communicate more effectively with other people. Many teachers do not pay enough attention to nonverbal communication in class, contributing directly to failure in achieving teaching goals and students’ acquisition of knowledge. 

Teachers can use body language such as gestures to signal and instigate changes in the class atmosphere and thus further their instructional goals, throughout a class period encompassing such various activities as conversation and choral repetition. Furthermore, through nonverbal communication, they can effect personalization between class members and thus lessen the inhibitions which normally plague language students.

There were two categories-proxemics and kinesics-for this paper. Proxemics Interpersonal Distance and Proxemics  Spatial Orientation. Interpersonal Distance, when the teacher is giving a lecture, he should walk off the stage to join the crowd of students and make moderate interaction with them instead of standing on the stage all the time.  When a student is answering a question, the teacher can lean a little bit to him to listen attentively, showing interest and attention on the teacher ’s part.

Kimberley Thoresen in his article physical classroom arrangement provides two ways of classroom arrangements : Horseshoe classroom arrangement and Modular classroom arrangement. The students' attention is easily attracted by the use of body language, and the body language can also help them deepen their impression and imagination.  In a nutshell, nonverbal communication plays an important role in communicative behaviors. So that if teacher can teach nonverbal communication knowledge of English, students can understand English easily and improve their communicative abilities. In one word, nonverbal communication is beneficial for us to language teaching.

Source : Nonverbal Teacher-student Communication in the Foreign Language Classroom

              by Qi Pan English Department, Zhenjiang Watercraft College, Zhenjiang, China

  ISSN 1799-2591

  Theory and Practice in Language Studies, Vol. 4, No. 12, pp. 2627-2632, December          2014