The Application of Teachers’ Body Language in English Teach

（英文姓名）

English (学号)

（指导教师英文姓名）

March 22, 2016

The Application of Teachers’ Body Language in English Teaching

Introduction

In English teaching, the study of verbal language is always the key point. However, an important supplementary means of verbal communication-body language has been ignored for a long time. Many teachers do not have not enough knowledge about body language, and even some of them do not know what body language is. What‟s more, they have no consciousness of the active application of body language in English teaching, which prevent from playing its role to the full. Body language is not only the constitution in communication, but also a necessary means in English teaching. In fact, it is a powerful and invisible way to improve the quality of class teaching. In English teaching, spoken language is indispensable, but necessary body language is needed to match up in order to get a better result. Patrick W·Miller pointed out in his book Nonverbal Communication, that in class room teaching, 88% information is transmitted by nonverbal language, and only 12% information is conveyed by language.[1]In addition, body language is an indispensable component of nonverbal language. So, body language is still a necessary means in teaching, especially in English teaching. Then, what is body language? Although the concept of body language is relatively new, there has been a proliferation of studies trying to explain what …body language‟ really means. In the earlier period of research, many scholars inclined to use the term “nonverbal communication”, “nonverbal behavior”or “Kinesics”instead of “body language”. Through long term discussion and development, body language means all the communications beyond language, which includes body behavior, time and space, distance, smell and so on.[2] As for the concept of teachers‟ body language, there is no accurate definition until now. Some researchers just add “teacher”to the description of “body language”simply. This sort of definition cannot reflect the specialty of teachers‟ body language. Therefore, in this paper, it discusses some situations of body language and its relationship with English.

In English teaching, teachers‟ proper body language is not only a helpful means to improve the efficiency of teaching, but also an effective way to express teachers‟emotions or feelings. Psychologist revealed that