On Nonverbal Communication And Its Use In Classroom Teaching

This paper aims to present a relatively systematic study of nonverbal communication. In particular, it gives a detailed account of the use of nonverbal communication in classroom teaching and its cultural differences between different countries, and at the same time, it puts forward some suggestions for improving nonverbal communication skills and ability for both teachers and students to achieve better teaching and learning.Human communication is performed both verbally and nonverbally. Classroom teaching , as a process of a face -to- face communication, is also the same. Nonverbal communication (NVC is short for nonverbal communication in the latter part of the paper.) plays an important role in classroom teaching, and nonverbal skills are invaluable for teachers in getting the messages across and understanding the messages of interests or messages of confrontations, which are sending through postures, gestures, eye contact, etc. For a long time, people pay much attention to verbal communication, ignoring the fact that the majority of the information in face-to-face communication is conveyed through nonverbal means. As a result, the study of NVC is relatively lagging behind. So far, scholars in many fields, home and abroad have contributed a lot to the study on nonverbal communication.NVC, with a variety of definitions, has a lot of functions and characteristics. It is given different classifications by theorists. The paper intends to study the application of NVC in classroom teaching. According to Cooper(1988:60-83), it might be convenient to classify the term as:l) body language; 2) proxemics; 3) spatial arrangement; 4)time language; 5)paralanguage; 6) environmental factors;7)physical attractiveness and artifacts;8) touch.NVC is culturally patterned. The same nonverbal means may signify differently in different cultures and the same meaning may be expressed through various nonverbal means in different cultures. The improper use of nonverbal means can be a barrier to successful intercultural communication. The paper mainly explores the cultural differences in the use of NVC from the perspectives of kinesics including gesture, posture, facial expression and eye contact, proxemics, paralanguage and time language.NVC has great influence in classroom teaching. The paper is focused on the application of NVC in classroom teaching in the aspects of physical attractiveness and artifacts, gesture and posture, touch, space and paralanguage, etc. To illustrate the positive and negative impact of NVC on classroom teaching and learning, a series of experiments, questionnaires, interviews, investigations and observation are conducted in the paper .The results show that some positive and lively types of nonverbal behaviors have positive impact on classroom teaching and some have negative impact on itIn the end, the paper provides some ways to improve nonverbal communication skills and ability for both teachers and students to better their teaching and learning.