| After several innovations of teaching approaches, it is well accepted that the purpose of language teaching is to cultivate one's communicative competence. And as a skill that enables us to produce utterances, speaking is purpose-driven. In other words, we want to communicate something to achieve a particular goal. Therefore, the intention of teaching Oral English to non-native speakers is that learners should be able to produce meaningful utterances in the target language, to deal with general interactions such as greeting, apologizing, and to present personal needs for information, such as asking for something or giving directions, etc. Since the early 1970s, communicative approach, in which students are taught to communicate freely in the target language, has become more and more popular. This requires teachers of Oral English should have proficient classroom communication techniques, so that they can improve the efficiency of communication process in an Oral English classroom where face to face interactions occur at times. Teachers' classroom behavior, especially nonverbal behavior can be one of the decisive factors in teaching success. This dissertation then is to study teachers' nonverbalbehavior in Oral English classroom from the point of view of the relationship between teachers' beliefs and practices. This qualitative study would not only reveal further information of the status quo of the teaching practice but also provide valuable explorations into teacher education and development programs.Of all three communicative channels, linguistic content occupied large part of the teaching syllabus while the knowledge of NVC only appears subject to the main dominance of verbal language teaching and learning. In fact, while one is imparting information in the course of conversation, verbal behavior and nonverbal ones function as a pair of instruments for the shared understanding. As a matter of fact, people who get involved in interpersonal communication can find that even knowledge of the sounds, the grammar, and the vocabulary cannot necessarily come about the successful communication. On a lot of occasions, nonverbal communication is of importance because we learn about other persons' affective or emotional states by inferring from their actions. Thus, it is essential for language teachers to make all three communicative channels clear to their students and make up the ignorance of nonverbal communication deficiency in language teaching and learning.Among the different classifications on nonverbal communication in human interaction, the dissertation combines the categories classified by Knapp (1997) and Bi Jiwan (1999) to exemplify the employment and functions of teacher's nonverbal behaviors in an Oral English classroom. Of all the categories, body language which includes gesture, posture, facial expression, eye behavior and touching, object language, environment language and paralanguage are described in this paper since they are the most commonly used nonverbal means for teachers. Additionally, the sound use of body language, along with appropriate environment, may well speak louder than verbal instruction.In this qualitative research, teachers' nonverbal behavior in Oral English classroom is studied from the perspective of teacher's beliefs and practices. The combination of implicit beliefs and explicit behaviors would enable us to thoroughly understand the relation between teachers' beliefs and their classroom behaviors. Teachers' beliefs are their attitudes about their work, their students, their subject matter, and their roles and responsibilities (Nespor, 1987). The relationship between teachers' beliefs and pedagogical behaviors varies from consistent to inconsistent. Teachers' beliefs maydirectly influence their behavior in classroom, which lead to the consistent thesis whereas the inconsistency occurs when the study is affected by the research measures or contextual factors.Based on the review of the above discussion, this dissertation addresses the following aspects concerning teachers... |
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