Study On Students’ Acceptability Of Teachers’ Nonverbal Communication In Class And Its Application

Nonverbal communication is a burgeoning subject and the study of nonverbal communication can trace back to the time of ancient Greece. In 1870s, Darwin firstly did the systematic study and discussion about nonverbal communication as an independent subject. It is regarded as the beginning of interrelated research on nonverbal communication by the academic world. Chinese study of nonverbal communication was in an embryonic stage for a long time and Chinese scholars didn’t join the academic team of nonverbal communication until 1970s. Since then, many books and research papers on nonverbal communication are published in succession.According to researches of Knapp and Hall (1992), verbal behaviors only transmit 35% of the messages in human interaction, and the rest are transmitted by nonverbal behaviors. Therefore, nonverbal communication plays an important role in interpersonal communication. Ekman (1965) identified functions of nonverbal communication as the following:repeating, contradicting, complementing, substituting, accenting/moderating, and regulating. With the development of study on nonverbal communication, its application in English class is gradually appreciated in recent years. In Coopers’ (1988) Speech Communication for the Classroom Teacher, he introduces the function and application of nonverbal communication in English class.Currently, the domestic studies of nonverbal communication mainly focus on dimension of cross-culture communication, and few of them pay attention to relationship between nonverbal communication and English teaching, let alone the systematic discussion, hence teachers and students are giving inadequate attention to the status and role of nonverbal communication in English class. Therefore, in order to know students’ acceptability of teachers’ nonverbal behaviors in English class, and whether there are some correlation between students’ acceptability and their genders, whether there are some correlations between students’ acceptability and their specialties, the author randomly choose 150 students from two classes of Graduate School of Northeast Forestry University and did the sample study in the form of issuing questionnaires, and data analysis is done based on the result of study. The result shows that:1) 76% of the students can accept and are able to understand teachers’ nonverbal behaviors in English class. The questionnaire consist statements about facial expression, eye contact, body movement, pitch of voice and spatial distance. Among all these statements, statements about facial expression are most acceptable.2) There is no significant difference between students’ acceptability of teachers’ nonverbal behaviors and students’ genders, yet male students choose more extreme options than female students.3) There is no significant difference between students’ acceptability of their genders and students’ specialties, however, forestry management students give more extreme answers than students majored in natural science.On the basis of the current situation of Chinese English teaching and the research results of nonverbal communication created by modern scholars, the thesis combines the study results and makes the suggestion that teachers should use facial expressions, body movements a the environment appropriately to motivate students, and adjust teaching through students’ nonverbal feedback. The principle of using nonverbal communication in class should be resonance with students and moderate use.