The Study Of Nonverbal Communication In EFL Teaching

There are two forms in interpersonal communication: the language communicationand nonverbal communication. Coordinated with each other, the two kinds of meansmake the human communication system completed. David Avercrombie said that weuse pronunciation organ to talk, but we use whole body to make conversations (JiaYuxin,1997). Nonverbal communication usually has six functions: complementing,repeating, substituting, contradicting, accenting, and regulating. In actualcommunication, verbal and nonverbal information influence each other and worktogether.Although we use more language communication in intercultural communication,the important role that the nonverbal communication plays is far more than that of thelanguage communication. Many western linguists and scholars have conducted detailedstudies on nonverbal communication. The results of the studies show that only35%ofmessages are transmitted by language communication and65%of information isdelivered by nonverbal communication. Some scholars even think that in thecommunication between people with different cultures, about85%of communication isfinished by nonverbal means. Thus, nonverbal communication plays an extremelyimportant role in human communication.However, in recent years, majority of scholars focus mainly on languagecommunication research and ignore the nonverbal communication, and the research onnonverbal communication in college English classroom is even less.College English class is a place for teacher and students to make fullcommunication and the teacher-students communication goes throughout the wholeteaching. Some researchers have pointed out that:82%of information of classroomteaching is transmitted by means of teachers’ nonverbal behaviors, such as facialexpressions, behaviors; only18%of the information is carried through the languagebehavior (Grant and Hennings,1971). Teachers’ each word, movement, dressing,making-up, facial expression, mood, even an eye expression or standing position, isnothing but a means of transinformation to all students, and also affects the teachingeffect and students’ attitude toward the course and the teacher. More and more teachers come to realize that compared with languagecommunication, nonverbal communication is a more effective communication means.In English class, teacher’s nonverbal behavior has the auxiliary function, reinforcingfunction and infectious effect on students, and can even substitute sound language toconvey information. It is very useful for English teachers to apply nonverbalcommunicative means appropriately to English class, which is beneficial to establishgood relationship between teachers and students and improve the classroom teachingefficiency.Based on a questionnaire within100college students and a discussion andinterview with10teachers who teach College English, the author collects relevantmaterials, and analyzes the present situation, types, functions and other aspects ofnonverbal communication used in classroom by college English teachers and students,and then discusses the relationship between nonverbal communication and EFLclassroom teaching efficiency, so as to provide some help for domestic EFL classroomteaching.Guided by Krashen’s Affective Filter Hypothesis and Cross-culturalCommunicative Theory and based on the data of the questionnaire, this thesis is todiscuss systematically about the functions, features and current status of nonverbalcommunication in EFL class from the perspective of body language, paralanguage,object language and environmental language, the relationship between verbal andnonverbal communication in language classroom, as well as how to improve teachers’nonverbal behaviors to make their class more effective.