The Study On Nonverbal Behaviors Used By Primary School's English Teachers In Class

At present,the development of English teacher professionalism in the primary school comes mainly from classroom teaching practice.But some teachers are not so familiar with the concept of nonverbal behavior,instead,they just know some body gestures,facial expression,intonation and so on which are the basic qualities of an English teacher.In fact,nonverbal behavior research in class can not only promote the study of English classroom teaching and learning in the primary school but also improve the study of teaching behaviors.Therefore,to improve teachers' teaching effectiveness,learning nonverbal behavior should be contained in English teachers' professional development.This paper aims to study classroom nonverbal behavior used by English teachers in the primary school and to solve the following three questions:(1)What's primary school English teachers' awareness of nonverbal behaviors and their performance in class?(2)What different effects do teachers' nonverbal behaviors bring to students in different grades?(3)How to use of nonverbal behaviors in the English classroom teaching of primary school appropriately?To work out the research questions,the author mainly referred to related books,journals and different academic papers and classified the nonverbal behaviors used in class into eight categories: gesture,posture,paralanguage,eye movement,facial expression,general appearance,time distribution and space arrangement,and then applied the interview method,non-participatory classroom observation and questionnaire survey to further study on these categories.The interview and classroom observation objects selected were three English teachers from the author's internship school in a district of Guangzhou,and the objects of questionnaire survey were students taught by those selected teachers in different grades respectively.The research methods of interview,non-participatory observation and questionnaire for both teachers and students were to collect and analyze data of nonverbal behaviors used by English teachers in the primary school classroom.And the classroom observation result showed that the top three nonverbal behaviors frequently used by primary school's teachers in class are gesture,eye contact and space arrangement which have some effects on both teaching and learning.According to the interview,the teachers paid least attention to time distribution.One of the reasons is that the students in the primary school are too hard to manage themselves in the classroom activities which led to less time spent on teaching knowledge of a new lesson.And the research result of the students' questionnaires also showed that the nonverbal behaviors had significant effect on the classroom teaching and learning.In addition,teachers space arrangement,eye contact and facial expression play a different role in different grades in class teaching.Therefore,for the development of English teachers' nonverbal behaviors in the classroom,the author puts forward the following proposals:(1)Try to manage the activity time in class better.(2)Use nonverbal behaviors in class differently in different grades.(3)Pay attention to personal reflection on nonverbal behaviors in class.