| As a new and exciting science, the study of nonverbal behavior has been uncovered and explored within the last 40 years although nonverbal communication even has a longer history than both oral and written communication. For a long time, people in our daily life normally emphasize the verbal aspect of communication, overlooking the fact that the majority of the information in face-to-face communication conveyed by the people is nonverbal. As nonverbal communication is so basic that we tend to take it for granted and always ignore it in our English classroom teaching. However, nonverbal communication has powerful influence on English classroom teaching, and nonverbal skills are invaluable for teachers in getting the messages across to class and understanding the messages of interest or messages of confrontations, which are sending through each in many aspects.Nonverbal communication, with a variety of definitions, has developed into a new discipline. It covers a wide range of scope that is classified in different ways by different theorists. This paper prefers such a kind of classification as the use of kinesics, proxemics, chronemics, paralanguage and environment factors. Nonverbal communication characterizes a lot and functions a great deal, and it has its own types and functions in classroom teaching.Different cultures have different attitudes toward time. But it is common that both teachers and students are required to be punctual to the class. Those students who are punctual to the class can impress teachers positively, while students expect those teacherswho are on time for class. Different courses require different length of time and so do different students. The spatial distance between teachers and students is also a "critical factor in the communication process" of teaching and learning (Miller, 1981). The teachers who conduct their classes while standing or walking among their students are viewed more positively than those teachers who stand at the front of the classroom. In addition, the patterns of seating arrangement are not only helpful for communication between teachers and students but also for communication among students themselves. As a result, to achieve a successful communication between teachers and students, teachers are required to develop the awareness of a proper use of patterns of seating arrangement.Teachers' appearance and artifacts affect, either positively or negatively, communication in the classroom. A smiling teacher is thought to convey warmth and promote a supportive and non-threatening classroom atmosphere. Eye contact can seek feedback between teachers and students, and keep channels of communication closed or open and can infer the relationship between teachers and students. Relaxed posture and lively gestures can arouse students' positive attitude. Touch is a powerful communicator for establishing a link to students or conveying emotions.Such vocal elements as intonation, tone, pitch, rhythm, timbre, volume and inflection, pace, etc. form a powerful, subtle and vital part of communication between teachers and students. Silence or pause becomes the medium for conveying messages in classroom teaching. The environmental factors in the classroom, such as appearance of the classroom, noise, color, lighting condition, music and objects used in the class for teaching purposes have shown great influence on classroom teaching.However, nonverbal communication widely varies from culture to culture. People's employment of nonverbal communication is subconscious, learned and culture-bound. A proper behavior in one culture might be a faux pas in another. For example, in Chinese culture, teachers are accustomed to controlling their emotions or even hiding their true feelings and emotions. On the contrary, Western teachers always regard the classroom as a performance stage and they themselves act like actors to create a relaxed atmosphere for learning and teaching; In Chinese classroom, when a question is raised in class, the students customarily lower their heads and...
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