论文总字数：33143字

摘 要

人类交际是言语和非言语交际的结合。体态语作为非言语交际的一个重要组成部分，与言语交际一起实现人际交流的目的。同时，体态语在英语教学中也是一项重要的技能，是学生与教师交流的媒介。然而在传统教学模式的影响下，老师往往过于注重知识的讲解，而忽略了非言语交际的应用。因此，本文旨在通过介绍体态语在小学英语教学中的应用，唤起老师与学生对体态语的关注。

关键词：非言语交际；体态语；小学英语教学

Contents

1. Introduction 1

2. Literature Review 2

2.1 Definition of body language 2

2.2 Classification of body language 2

2.3 Studies on body language in English teaching 5

3.Advantages of Body Language in English Teaching 6

3.1 Regulating class 6

3.2 Promoting teacher-student relationship 7

3.3 Improving students’ learning 8

4.Application of Body Language in Primary School English Teaching 8

4.1 Application of body language in vocabulary 8

4.2 Application of body language in listening 9

4.3 Application of body language in speaking 9

5. Suggestion 10

6. Conclusion 11

Works cited 12

1. Introduction

As we all know, not only verbal communication but also nonverbal communication is a good way for people to communicate with each others. But it is a pity that most people pay more attention to verbal communication while ignoring the importance of nonverbal communication .In fact, nonverbal communication plays a crucial role during communication because it can contain more information and express more information compared with verbal communication. What’s more, as a part of the nonverbal communication, body language is also an important media in the process of human communication. During the communication, Albert Mehrabian claims that only 7％ of what is transmitted is through the words themselves,38％ through the tone of voice and 55％ is a result of body language (Sun.1997).That is to say, body language provides more information than the words and we may not complete communication without body language.

In China, most students learning English through the English class. Actually, it is one of the easiest way for the students to access to English. However, because of the examination--oriented education system, many English teachers attach much importance to the verbal communication, therefore, they often ignore the application of body language deliberately which makes teaching language rigorous ,precise, vivid and lively and make the teaching content more easy for students. As a matter of fact, in the process of teaching, body language can help teachers to create a good teacher-student atmosphere and arouse students’ interest in learning. When it comes to body language, there are many types of body language including facial expressions, postures, gestures, eye contact and so on and each type is for its own trade. For example, a smile can encourage students who have little confidence or a piercing stare can give the student a warning who is chatting with his or her partner during class. So it is body language that makes the classroom-teaching more harmonious and lets the teacher regulate the class without defaming the students’ self-esteem .In a word, body language is a great teaching aid during the teaching process.

The overall structure of this thesis will be like this: Chapter 1 serves as the introduction of the whole paper. Chapter 2 focuses on the definition, the classification, and the historical study of body language. Chapter 3 introduces the application of body language in English teaching in primary school .And chapter 4 gives some suggestions for the primary school English teachers. Finally, by analyzing the current state of body language in English teaching, the author gives the conclusion.

2. Literature Review

This chapter concerns first with the definition of body language, then comes to the classifications of body language, including eye contact, facial expressions, gesture and posture. And historical study of body language in English Teaching will be discussed in the third part.

2.1 Definition of body language

What is body language? The early researchers Ruesch amp; Kees (1956) and Galloway(1970)provided a simple version and pointed out that body language is a way of communication without any words. There are different versions given by different dictionaries. According to Oxford Advanced Learned Dictionary, body language is defined as: “the process of communicating what you are feeling or thinking by the way you place and move your body rather than by words.”(p.128) Longman Exams Dictionary gives the definition of changes in your body position and movements that show what you are feeling or thinking (p.227) and Cambridge learner’s dictionary defines body language as :the way you move your body ,that shows people what you are feeling.(p.75). To put it more specifically, body language refers to the actions or behaviors, reflective or non-reflective, from part of the body or the whole body to communicate with feelings with others (Fast, 1970) From above all, though different scholars give different definitions, we can easily conclude that body language is an essential media in the process of communication.

2.2 Classification of body language

2.2.1 Eye contact

As the old saying goes that “the eyes are the window of the soul”, that is to say people can express their emotion through their eyes or deduce what other people are thinking by looking at their eyes. There are various types of eye contact, such as gaze, glance and blink. Different types represent different feeling of people. According to the American social psychologist Michael Argyle, people like to have more eye contact with each other; people do not like each other on the little eye contact we can conclude that eye contact plays a key role in human communication. What’s more, eye contact also plays an important role in English class. In class, eye contact between the teacher and the students is inevitable. By gazing, the teacher can know the overall situation of the class, like who is absent or who is not in a good state, which can show the stateliness of the teacher as a teaching leader. When the students are asked to answer a question, the eye contact of the teacher can give the student energy and encouragement so that he or she might not be nervous. Furthermore, eye contact will help the teacher regulate and manage the class. For example, it is unavoidable that some of the students may be absent-minded, whispering with their partners or having something to eat in secret during class, so the teacher’s eye contact can function as an alarm for the students without defaming their self-esteem and the students can avoid the discomfort and embarrassment . In all, the eye contact is a good way to arouse students’ concern and improve the effect of class.

2.2.2 Facial expression

Facial expression is closely linked to people’s emotion. As we all know, facial expression is a “universal language” in human communication, people can express their feelings through facial expression, such as happiness, sadness or fear. Research says, there are about 250,000 kinds of different expressions and people can get some information from these kinds of facial expressions .Thus, we can see the importance of facial expressions in human communication .In this way, facial expressions play a crucial role in English teaching.

There are a variety of facial expressions, like smile, cry, head-nodding. Let’s take smile as an example, as we all know, smile is the symbol of happiness, so when the teacher comes into the classroom, he or she should wear a smile .Because in this way students may feel at ease and it is good for teachers to create a harmonious atmosphere for teaching. For example, when the student gives a wrong answer during the class, if the teacher gives him or her an encouraging smile, the student may feel warm .on the contrast, if the teacher criticizes him or her with a strict face, the student may feel embarrassed and lose confidence in learning English. Compared with Chinese and Math, English is comparatively hard to learn, because most primary school students in China have no basis on English. So our English teacher should keep students’ interest and confidence in learning English. Coincidentally, smile as a branch of facial expressions has this magic function. A warm smile can give students a comfortable studying surrounding. What’s more, different facial expressions have different functions. So the teacher should choose the right facial expressions during the class. In all, if the teacher can use the facial expression correctly, he or she may receive an excellent teaching result and the students will have a better understanding.

2.2.3 Gesture

As the scholar Brosnahan says: “actually gesture is the core of body language ”(毕，1999) because gesture is the most meticulous and lively one and can be used at ease. There are three main functions of the teacher’s gesture: 1）explain and describe the teaching content 2)emphasize the fact 3）draw students’ attention. The effect of the teacher’s gesture is based on the proper, timely and precise use of the gesture. therefore, during the teaching period, the teacher should teach the knowledge with the correct and accurate gesture, which is able to strengthen the effect of expression and stimulate students’ learning interest .What’s more, the teacher can encourage students by using the correct gesture ,for example, when the student gives a prefect answer, the teacher can give him or her a praise with a thumb-up as well as saying good or excellent . Sometimes the teacher can shake their hands to indicate the wrong answer. If the teacher does not use gesture while he or she is speaking, he or she may be considered as a dull person. Furthermore, the gesture used by the teacher should be easy to figure out, because most of the students feel confused about the gesture used by their native English teacher, which can not achieve the expected effect. In a word, gestures have many expressions and can be used widely. However, we should acknowledge the fact that the teacher should not use the gesture very frequently; because too many gestures may distract students’ attention .thus our English teachers should grasp the right degree when using gestures.

2.2.4 Posture

The posture of the teacher is also known as teacher’s manner, which is a universal body language. To some degree, posture reflects the state and cultural cultivation of the teacher. The mature and appropriate posture can give students a positive feedback and information .Generally speaking, the requirement for teachers to stand and pose is a principle that: stomach in, chest out, shoulder back and head out. In the class, the teacher should choose an appropriate posture according to the different teaching contents and teaching aims. For instance, when English teachers turn his or her face to students, this kind of posture conveys the message of confidence and concentration. Also, the teacher can walk around the classroom when the students are doing exercises, which can give help to the student in need or give some instructions to the students instantly. What’s more, the teacher can walk towards the student who is answering the question, and this behavior represents encouragement and listening. However, the teacher had better not lean his or her back in the chair or put his or her feet on the chair, because these behaviors will convey a kind of negative feeling to students. Last but not least, the teacher should not use the posture very frequently, because too much irrelevant posture will fuzz students’ attention and can not achieve a perfect purpose.

2.3 Studies on body language in English teaching

Body language has a long history. During the time without language, our ancestors use gestures and facial expressions to communicate with each other. The research of body language as a independent subject can be traced back to 1872, when the famous biologist Darwin published the book The Expression of The Emotion in Man and Animal .In the book ,he says some gestures and facial expressions also have the communicative function ,the phenomenon arouses the interest of people and lays the foundation of the research of body language. After Darwin, body language has become the research object of psychology, anthropology, sociology and pedagogy. In the 1960s and 1970s, the research of body language comes to peak, during this time, many books about body language are published, and most of these books introduce body language systematically. For instance, a very important book Body language (1970)written by J.fast gives suggestions on how to accurately understand the nonverbal information in social interaction and how to control one’s body language .

In China, the study of body language can be dated to Confucius’s time, but the real beginning is in the 1980s, in which time the study of body language has a further improvement. At that time, some Chinese scholar knew the importance of body language and quoted some academic opinion from some famous foreign scholars .until 1988, some books about body language had been published gradually, including A summary of body language by Geng Erling(1988),nonverbal communication translated by Meng Xiaoping(1991)and so on. These books on body language have a further influence on the later study of body language in our country.

Since 1950s, body language is connected with jobs by some scholars who are absorbed in research. At first, body language is applied to tourist industry and cross-culture communication. After that, body language used in teaching arouses some scholars’ interest. in 1957,Redle and Wiveman have pointed that when teacher deal with the students’ wrong behavior, they can use “verbal reaction ” and “nonverbal reaction” and the latter is always the teacher’s first choice with the purpose of making other students in the class pay the least attention to the students doing wrong. In the 1960s, some American scholars pay their attention to teachers’ body language and do a list of researches. During the 1970s and 1980s, the study of teachers’ body language had a rapid development. In 1974,Keith thought there were seven nonverbal behaviors important for studying teachers’ nonverbal behavior, including the direction of teachers’ look，the richness of teachers’ facial expressions，the distance from students，postures，head movement，gestures revealing feelings and touches of body. In recent years, more and more Chinese scholars attach importance to body language used in teaching. Jin Jieamp;Yang Yi (2002) discussed how to improve the foreign language teaching level and promote the students’ learning interest by using body language. What’s more ,some books like the Teaching art (Li Rumi,1995,)Classroom Teaching Skills（Xu Gaohou,1997）,Teaching Language and art（Wei Lijie,Wei Lihua ,2003) also emphasize the importance of teachers’ body language.

3. Advantages of Body Language in English Teaching

3.1 Regulating class

The necessary condition for students to learn English well is a relaxed and happy classroom atmosphere .Whether the atmosphere lively or rigid depends on the teaching aids employed by the English teachers, which urges the teachers to take the accurate ways to create a relaxed learning atmosphere and lively classroom condition. By doing so, students feel at ease, whose attention can be attracted by the teachers. During the class, students can not only hear teachers’ voice, see what the teacher writes on the blackboard, but also pay their attention to the posture and expression of the teachers, From these, the students can gain most useful information , which is vivid and obvious to remember. So before the class, the teacher should be familiar with teaching contexts, on the basis of good preparation, the teacher can design the body language to be used in class to draw the students’ attention and make students able to understand the knowledge easily. At the same time, body language can make the classroom always keep alive and full of inspiration .With various kinds of body language, like posture and gesture (singing, dancing, running), students may feel excited and surprised. So the students are willing to feel and learn new knowledge. Thus in this kind of atmosphere, the efficiency of learning English is improved and the students’ enthusiasm is also high, and the teaching effect will certainly be achieved twice the result with half the effort.

What’s more, the proper use of body language can make students listen more carefully. Generally speaking, as we all know, not all the students are absorbed in listening during the whole class. It is inevitable that some of the students may be absent-minded, whisper with their partners or have something to eat in secret. So for most teachers may criticize the students during the teaching period which will make the students feel embarrassed or this action will disturb other students. Therefore, the result is just the contrary. However, if the teachers use eye contact to give the student an alert, the student may notice that his behavior is incorrect and will listen to teacher carefully again. The greatest advantage of using body language to regulate class is that it avoids distracting students’ self-esteem and their being laughed by other students. Furthermore, some of the students may be clamorous while the teacher is teaching some new knowledge, in this case, the teacher can stop teaching to look around the whole classroom instead of stopping to criticize the student. With the sudden silence, the student may realize that his disturbance affects the process of teaching and will obey the class rules. As a result, the teacher can achieve a better effect by using body language, which is superior to criticizing the student face to face

3.2 Promoting teacher-student relationship

According to some researches, one’s behaviors reflect one’s personality, the body language expressed by man mostly originates from their inner world, maybe it is difficult for a person to control his body language, because body can express his inner world through body language from time to time .As body language is controlled by the brain, it is a direct reflection of the teacher. In this way, students can see their teachers’ inner world, personality and temperament by body language, which will exert deep effect on teaching.

As is often the case, there is always invisible distance between the teachers and the students. For most students, the teacher is the symbol of severity. They think the teachers who have little eye contact or facial expression are rigid or unwilling to have communication with them. So it is hard for many students to communicate with their teachers just like their friends. as a matter of fact, the communication between teachers and students includes knowledge and affection. And the communication, to some extent, is based on body language. Teachers’ accurate body language can give students unconscious influence both on mood and emotion or express feelings which are hard to express in words. For instance, in the teaching activities, the teacher can use their various body languages to show personality. The positive body language is the core of the relationship between the teachers and students which helps build an excellent interactive studying atmosphere. Learning English is a study of language, so the interaction between teachers and students is especially important .The colorful body language used by the English teachers can attract students’ interest and assist them in interacting with their teachers.

Also, the tidy image, amiable facial expression, eye contact with confidence can give students a deep impression, which brings the fact the students are willing to accept the teachers’ idea, listen to him or her and communicate with their teachers. In these cases, the effect “a student will believe in teachings only when he gets close to his teacher” is not difficult to realize.

3.3 Improving students’ learning

For most Chinese primary school students, English is unfamiliar and boring, because they are not the native speakers and have no basis on English learning, they may have little interest in learning English. As the saying goes, interest is the first teacher. The study interest is the prime motive power of learning English. In the traditional education system, most teachers consider the grade is the most important thing in learning, therefore learning English is lack of happiness. At this time, body language as a teaching tool used during the teaching period seems rather important. By using body language, the teachers can express the ideas more clearly and more vividly, which can arouse students’ attention and interest ,then the students are likely to listen more ,learn more and express more in the class and have a more optimistic attitude towards English. The nature of the pupils is lively, but they have strong imitation and rich imagination ,so when the teacher use body language in class, the students may follow their teacher, especially those lifelike body language which is impressive and easy to imitate for students, including drawing, singing or acting. By doing so, the students can learn the words, phrases, sentences and dialogues impressively .During the imitation, the students can gain a lot of abilities like listening, speaking, reading ,writing and so on and improve their own qualities. With the curiosity and emulation, the students can stimulate students’ thinking and imagination, and students can have a deeper level of learning, changing from learning to being able to learning.

4. Application of Body Language in Primary School English teaching

Body language plays an important role in English Teaching. It can be used in different aspects of English teaching. It can be used both in language knowledge and language skills.

4.1 Application of body language in vocabulary

English vocabulary is abundant. As Mr. Hu Yangming says, “the importance of vocabulary teaching should be largely emphasized.”In fact, the English vocabulary teaching is no expectation. For most Chinese students, primary school is the starting point of learning English, so the students don’t know anything about the words, because of their first time contact with English. What’s more, some students may memorize these words mechanically. Even if the words have been written for many times, the students still don’t know the meaning of the words or have a little about these words, which causes the fact that the students can not use these words correctly and appropriately when communicating with others. However, by using body language, many words in students’ textbook can be directly taught. For instance, when teaching the word “sorry”, the teacher can use rich facial expressions to pretend to be sad or when teaching the word “hungry”, the teacher can touch hi belly to this kind of feeling. Thus, the students can understand these words easily. In all, using body language in vocabulary teaching can improve students’ interest in English and let students have a very enjoyable and educational experience.

4.2 Application of body language in listening

The Greek philosopher Epictetus ever said: “Nature has given man one tongue and two ears that he may hear twice as much as he speaks’’. From this philosopher, we can know that listening is very important in our daily life. What is known to us all, listening ability is one of the essential skills during English class, so our English teachers should spare no efforts to improve students’ listening ability. In this process, if body language is perfectly used, the teaching will be better. For instance, the teacher can introduce such a beautiful girl in the textbook by opening his eyes largely and his mouth widely when teaching a new unit. Thus the students will have a deep impression that the girl is really very charming. Therefore, through body language, teacher can achieve a better effect.

4.3 Application of body language in speaking

It is well-known that spoken language is one way to communicate, so our teachers should try best to improve students’ speaking ability. In fact, nearly every unit begins with dialogues, so the teacher can guide students to act out dialogues. Generally speaking, the using of body language can arouse students’ interest in English. Therefore, not only should the use body language, but also encourages students to use body language during the class. For example, when making an introduction to new classmates, the teacher can smile when saying hello to everyone or shake hands to greet to them .Or when introducing his hobbies, he can pretend to play many kinds of ball games, play piano, sing or dance to show his interest. After that, the teacher can ask students to introduce themselves to their partners and the students can easily finish the dialogue with the help of body language. Thus, the English may be an interesting lesson.

5. Suggestion

Teaching is an art. As we all know, the teachers who have just wisdom is not enough, and they should have practical teaching skills and ability to finish the teaching tasks ,which is more important to them. Body language as an important part of nonverbal communication plays a key role in the primary school English teaching due to the fact that the primary students have little awareness of English and they are unfamiliar with English. Thus Primary school English teachers should use various kinds of body language to attract students’ attention and improve the quality of the English class. As teachers play a core role in education, it is necessary for the English teachers to master some kinds of body language. Moreover the application of body language is also an art, In order to use body language accurately and lively, our primary school English teachers should try to follow the suggestions below,

i) The use of body language should meet the needs of teaching object and teaching content. The purpose of using body language is to make the teaching contents more understandable and the teaching process more effective .Therefore, when choosing the body language as teaching aid, on the one hand, the teacher had better take the current situation of students as a consideration. For example, for younger students, they are inclined to accept vivid body language, so the teacher should choose concrete, clear and sincere body language. On the other hand, the use of body language should not be frequent; otherwise, it gives students a sense of mystery. Only body language conforms to the requirements of teaching object and content can teachers achieve teaching goals.

ii) The application of body language should reflect teachers’ internal beauty and external beauty. Teachers always set examples to students who may imitate their teacher’ behavior during the class. So the body language chosen must be natural, elegant and magnanimous without mistakes and exaggeration .Otherwise, it may do harm to the image of the teacher and reduce the benefits for students. Thus，all kinds of vulgar body language should be abandoned.

iii) The application of body language should be combined with oral language. The success of body language mainly reflects the accuracy, decency and liveliness of teaching. While the combination of body language and oral language can make the English classroom teaching reach a better result .Because oral language can strengthen students’ attention and let body language more clear and effective, At the same time ,body language can make oral language more visual and understandable. Thus, the combination of body language and oral language can be beneficial to completing teaching tasks and improving teaching quality.

6. Conclusion

From the parts above, we can conclude that nonverbal communication or body language is helpful for English teaching. As a matter of fact, classroom teaching has become a vital way for students to learn English, so the forty-minute English class is essential to both teachers and students. However, in the traditional education, most English teachers pay much attention to the knowledge while ignoring the ability. With the development of our country and our society, it is a tendency that many teachers are inclined to focus on how to make the English class more vivid and lively or how to attract students’ attention to the English class, which has become the most popular question among teachers. Thus, in order to achieve these goals, English teachers try their best to find a proper way to English classroom teaching, that is body language.

Body language as a branch of nonverbal communication is very essential for English teaching as well as verbal communication. Firstly, in the classroom teaching, the elegant body language the teachers show can give students a silent example. Then, the English teachers can express the meaning more easily and vividly with the help of various kinds of body language so that the teachers can create a harmonious atmosphere where students can think and study happily .and deepen their impression and imagination .furthermore, body language is of great help for the English teacher to improve the relationship with students in which both teachers and students can know each other well. What’s more, body language can develop students’ imaginative thinking. In fact, body language is just like a kind of dumb show. However, when body language is combined with words, sentences or texts may show a magic power that the students can act vividly and lively. With the time passing by, everyone student can form his or her own body language, that is imaginative thinking in essence.

All in all, the application of body language in English classroom teaching is of great importance, which can create a relaxing studying environment and activate students’ learning interest. So the English teacher should try their best to use body language through the whole teaching period. In this way, students’ abilities will be greatly improved.

Works cited

Dou Jihui. A Survey of Teachers’ Body Language in English Teaching.2005

Hou zhenhua. A Study on Body Language of Pre-service English Teachers.2012

Liu Xuemei. A Study on Teacher Body Language in College English Teaching Classroom. 2009

Ren Jingjing. Body Language in English Teaching.2009

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