The Application of Teachers’ Body Language in English Teach(9)

(name of author) 9 atmosphere and set up the students‟ self-confidence. The teachers could pass on their energetic and optimistic through smile. If the teachers always bring the smile into the classroom, gradually, the students will be affected by the teachers‟positive attitude, and with the same attitude. Meanwhile, it could improve the quality of teaching. [10] As an English teacher, he or she should be full of spirit and energy and with smile in every class. At the beginning of class, the teacher should greet the students with smile, such as “how are you?‟, “nice to meet you!”. If the students give the right answer, the teachers should nod their head with smile to show encouragement, and give the thumbs-up sign and say, “excellent”or “very good”. However, if the students give wrong answer, the teachers should understand them with smile. Otherwise it will wound the students‟pride. Anyway, every teachers should bring the smile into classroom and play its maximum effect, lets the students learning English is fun rather than burden.

B. The use of gestures, postures and proper clothing

There are many body languages are known by us in daily life, but some teachers do not consider seriously using them in English teaching. Except for facial expressions, gestures, postures and clothing are the compositions of body language, and often used in English teaching.

i. The use of gestures

In the 21th century, Roth (2001) discussed the role of gestures in teaching and deduced two possible functions: “on the one hand, gesture might serve teachers as information to assess a student‟s current understanding of a topic; on the other hand, students might be able to use the teachers‟ gesture as additional resources for making sense of teacher talk, for example, by presenting novel perspectives on the lecture content.” With the appearance of this deduction, the function of gestures in the relationship between students and teachers has become an important factor in the teaching research. Sime (2006) concluded three types of functions that body language play in EFL classroom interaction: the first is cognitive, for example, gesture which work as enhancers of the learning process; the second is emotional, for example, gestures that function as reliable communicative devices of teachers‟ emotional and attitudes; the third is organization, for example, gestures which serve as tools of classroom management. [11] Nowadays, with the reform of English teaching material, new English teaching material required higher and higher for the use of teachers‟ body language. In English teaching, the use of accurate gesture could transmit teachers‟ideas, express their emotions, and increase the persuasion and inflection of their verbal language. Gesture means that the hand movement when a person convey his or her motions and ideas. In English teaching, the function of body language is very obvious.