A Study On The Effects Of Teachers’ Nonverbal Behaviors In Senior High School English Class

Human communication activities include verbal communication and nonverbal communication.Verbal communication is a way of expressing our inner thoughts and telling each other through language,and nonverbal communication is any form of communication other than vocal communication.Teaching is a series of communication process between teachers’ teaching and students’ learning(Sean,1991:85)."The key to successful classroom teaching lies in successful communication"(Wiemann,1975:54).In teaching communication,teachers use verbal behavior to impart knowledge to students,and also use nonverbal behavior to convey teaching information to students.In English classroom teaching,teachers’ nonverbal behavior plays a vital role in classroom management,affecting the effect of classroom teaching,and even directly determining the students’ learning efficiency in the classroom.This essay focuses upon teachers’ nonverbal behaviors in senior high school English class,aiming to exploring the following three questions:1)What types of nonverbal behaviors are most commonly used by senior high school English teachers in classroom teaching?2)What is the main function of each type of teacher’s nonverbal behavior in high school English classroom teaching?3)What are the effects of nonverbal behaviors of high school English teachers in class?The author takes 4 English teachers and 260 students from a senior high school in Chongqing as the research subjects,carries out questionnaire surveys and individual interviews,observes and records the teachers’ nonverbal behaviors in 20 English classes,and then summarizes and analyzes the information and data.The results show that: 1)Among the eight types of teachers’ nonverbal behaviors,based on the observation of the 20 English classes,symbolic action is the most frequently used,accounting for 29.29%,with instrumental actions in second place at21.45%.The third is the revealing action,followed by distance action,paralanguage,adaptive action,explanatory action and regulatory action.2)As for the five functions,"supporting and modifying verbal behavior" is used the most frequently,accounting for57.67%,far more than the use of other four functions.The second is "adjusting and organizing verbal teaching",accounting for 33.90%.The other three functions are "replacing verbal behavior","expressing emotion or attitude that is difficult to express in words" and "adapting to physiological and psychological needs".3)Through the analysis of the results of the student questionnaire survey,the author finds that nonverbal behavior has the most obvious influence on students’ classroom participation and learning motivation,the quality of classroom teaching and the relationship between teachers and students.In view of the above findings,the author puts forward the relevant teaching suggestions,hoping to provide some reference for the use and promotion of nonverbal behaviors of high school English teachers in class,in order to obtain better teaching effect.