论文总字数：30292字

摘 要

肢体语言作为交际的一种手段，在教学中起着不可或缺的作用，教师应该对它有足够的重视。随着时代和教学法的发展，国家要求中学老师进行全英文授课，为学生创造更好的学习环境。因此中学教师需要在肢体语言的协助下，简化自己的语言并丰富课堂。这篇文章阐述了肢体语言的定义和类型，论述了肢体语言在中学英语教学中各个方面的应用和在英语教学中使用肢体语言的优势。最后强调了肢体语言使用的重要性。

关键词：肢体语言；运用；英语教学；中学

Contents

1. Introduction……………………………......………………….………1
2. Literature Review………………………....................................………1
3. The General Introduction of Body Language …………………...…...2

3.1The definition of body language ...............................................................2

3.2 The types of body language......................................................................2

4. The Application of Body Language in Different Aspects…..................4

4.1 Teaching phonetics………………………………...………………..…4

4.2 Teaching words………………………………………….......................5

4.3 Teaching grammar strategies..................................................…..….….5

4.4 Controlling the class.................................................................................6

5.The Advantages of Body Language in English Teaching.......................6

5.1 Arousing student’s interest......................................................................7

5.2 Facilitating student’s understanding and adjusting atmosphere..............7

5.3 Developing a good relation between students and teachers......................8

5.4 Improving student’s language skills........................................................9

6. Conclusion…………………………………………………….…….....11

Works Cited……………………………………………………. .…….....13

1. Introduction

The world is a global village, and English has become a language which is most widely used in the world. Hence, more and more people are paying attention to English education and the demand for English is getting bigger. In traditional class, teachers always put emphasis on verbal communication. However, with the limitation of students’ vocabulary in the middle school, if teachers just use oral and written English all the way, students can’t understand or remember easily, and then they could lose interest in English. As a matter of fact, body language is also an important medium for communication. The American psychologist Albert Merabein studied that emotional expression equals 7% of the speech plus 38% of the voice and 55% of the facial movements. So, in order to make the class more efficient and arouse students’ interest, in addition to the verbal expression, the teacher can use eyes, gestures, facial expressions and other body languages to help students understand. Franklin once said, "tell me, I will forget; teach me, I will remember; involved me and I will learn."(Cheng 54) from this saying we know the importance of body language in the teaching process.

This article is divided into six parts. The first part introduces the general information of the article. The second part is about some scholar’s researches of this subject. The third part expounds the definition and types of body language. The fourth part discusses the application of body language in different aspects of English teaching, such as pronunciation, words, grammar and so on. The fifth part focuses on the advantages of using body language in English teaching, such as attracting students" interest, creating a good learning environment, promoting the communication between teachers and students, improving the students" ability of listening, speaking, reading and writing. In the end, the article makes a brief summary and once again emphasizes the importance of the use of body language.

2. Literature Review

Most scholars consider Ray.L Birdwhistell to be the founder of a nonverbal communication discipline. He created a new word “Kinesics”formally in his booklt;Corporate and Communicationgt;, which published in 1952. Since then, nonverbal communication has been studied from all aspects as a marginal subject. However, the real attention to the relationship between non-verbal communication and education should be traced back to the 1950s. At that time, some researchers began to notice the non-verbal communication behavior that occurred in teaching, and considered it to be of great importance in the classroom. Redl and Wiveman proposed that teachers could deal with students" problem behaviors in two different ways: “verbal response” and “nonverbal response”. Meanwhile, they emphasized that the first type of reaction the teacher may take is "non-verbal reaction." The purpose of taking such a response is to reduce the attention of other students to problematic students and to stop the problem behavior of students. Makapehko, a famous Soviet educationalist, pointed out that nonverbal communication is one of the basic skills of excellent teachers. An Australian linguist Allan pease "s lt;Body Languagegt; has caused a lot of reactions in China. The book illustrates the use of human eyes, expressions, gestures and other silent information, combines the communicative function of body language with some instances to analyze the application of Body language in the teaching process, all of which is of great significance for the study of using body language to improve teaching.

3.The General Introduction of Body Language

3.1 The definition of body language

Many definitions of body language have been put forward by experts. For example, Samovar and Porter hold such an idea:“body language is the specially, biologically, psychologically, or culturally framed exchange of valuable messages which are not verbally spoken out but conveyed by the body, gesture,symbol or relevant context and surrounding environment etc.”and Malandro and other scholars defined this term as the communication without word. While Miller, a famous scholar, had a more specific definition that it is the actions or properties which are not expressed by words. In a word, Body language is defined as non-verbal behavior which delivers information through gestures, postures and facial expressions. It is an important medium by which everyone communicates with each other.

3.2 The types of body language

Body language is part of nonverbal language. It includes things like stance, gestures, facial expressions, and even smaller things that are barely perceptible like a brief shrug of the shoulder or nod of the head.

3.2.1 Facial expression

Face is the most expressive part of our body, and facial expressions are also the first information that students will get in the class. From the report, we can know a person has 250000 different expressions together. It can be divided into eight categories: interested and excited, happy and enjoy, surprised and amazing, sad and suffering, fear and scared, shy and shamed, contempt and disgust, angry and sulky.

In general, the muscle group, around eyes and mouth, is the most abundant facial expressions. In class, teacher could use “smile、frown、Steer...”to take the place of the corresponding words. For instance, when a student answered a question perfectly or just answered, teacher could gave he/she an encouraging smile or an expression of appreciation to make students feel happy. When the students’ answers are wrong, the teacher can use an unconscious frown to encourage them to find right answers. The effect is much better than saying “wrong”, since the students’ pride can be protected.

3.2.2 Eye contact

One of the earliest learned behavior is the proper use of eye contact.The eye, the window revealing what is deep in one’s mind, is full of expressions. Eye contact is sometimes the key to communication. Because it can signal friendliness or hostility, interest or boredom and understanding or confusion. No interaction means almost no eye contact. In class, there is a peculiar phenomenon. When the teacher ask a question, some students head down immediately, because they are unwilling to answer this question or don’t know how to answer. All of students know if you have eye contact with teacher, they are possible to be asked. So eye contact is an important part of communication in class. The excellent English teacher can control the subtle emotional fluctuations of students and interactions through eye contact to master students’ ideas or communicate with them. Eye contact is the most vivid. The students will understand teacher"s meaning and the teacher will soon understand the student"s needs.

3.2.3 Gesture

Gesture refers to a particular language system, established by the people’s position and shape of fingers and hands. Gestures are the most commonly used actions in the class teaching, due to the rich expression, varieties of forms and speed of change. Using gesture properly in class can not only deliver information and express emotion but also increase the power of persuasion and influence of spoken language, thereby enhancing the students’ comprehension . In the class, gestures should be done naturally and reasonably, such as the palm out, the left and right wobble means "Hello!" Hi! "; palm down means "Sit down!"; palm push up indicates "Stand up!"; With the palm of the hand pointing up, the fingertips are in front of one thing, introducing "This is..."; a thumb up means "Good"; two thumbs up means "Great"; these simple contents can be represented by simple actions.However, more contents depends not only on the teacher"s actions but also certain situations in order to make students understand better.

3.2.4 Posture

Posture is a matter of how people sit,walk,stand and move. Educationists believe that posture is a significant part of body language, especially in middle English class teaching. If a teacher could use posture properly and neatly in class, students who are always absent-minded can be attracted. Moving and adjusting teachers’ distance with platform or students occasionally can give students different feelings (relax or stress) which make them more absorbed in class.

1. The Application of Body Language in Different Aspects

4.1 Teaching phonetics

Learning any language is always started with pronunciation. Learning pronunciation well is the foundation of learning English . Since middle school students have characteristics of image-based thinking, activeness, imitative ability, and strong short-term memory, ways should be as simple as possible when teaching phonetics so that students can easily imitate. Teachers can use more exaggerated mouth, for instance, they can imitate tiger-like sounds to express phonetic symbols/au/ to make students understandable and impressed. In addition, the phonetic symbols can also be matched with gestures. For example, mimicking the roar of tiger may causes the students to laugh, or leads the teacher"s image to be damaged. However, teachers are expected to play different roles like actors in this kind of physical teaching . In the process of laughing, students may remember the pronunciation of these phonetic symbols.

4.2 Teaching words

Memorizing words can be divided into two categories: spelling and meaning.

Memorizing the spelling of words should be linked to the pronunciation of words, which is helpful for students to remember words easily and simply. However, if there is no good way to get acquainted with the pronunciation of the word, mere imitation is very tedious. For example, when our teacher teaches the word “shirt”, she does not ask students to use s-h-i-r t to remember the shirt. Instead, she asks the students to look her appearance and puts her forefinger to say sh[ʃ], sh[ʃ]. In the process of reading, students get familiar with the pronunciation and image expression of the Chinese character “嘘”, which increases students’ interests in learning words, deepens their impression of the sound of the [ʃ] sound. Thus it is easy for them to remember the entire word.

There are many ways for teachers to help students remember the meaning of the word, such as facial expressions、gestures、postures and so on.

For instance:

A: when students learn a word, they can guess its meaning from the teacher’s facial expressions, such as the words “amazing”, “angry”, “enjoy”, “sad”, etc.

B: when they learn the words "big", "small", "long", "short", they can memorize them easily with the help of hand gestures of teacher.

C: when teaching verbs like "stand", "sit", “sing”, “jump”, the teachers can speak it with the corresponding actions,or participate together with the students to do such actions.

4.3 Teaching grammar strategies

In China, grammar is taught in a traditional teacher-centered way. Obviously there is too much teacher dominance and too little student involvement in such a class. Usually preparing such a grammar lesson means gathering all the corresponding rules or ideas on a topic from Books together with copied examples, and teaching grammar simply means reading aloud to the class what has been prepared before. Students are assumed to take notes for the final assessment. Teaching English grammar with the help of non-verbal language can make it exciting and interesting. It will stir the initiative and motivation of the students.

For example:When the teacher teaches the Present Continuous Tense “I am sleeping”, she can put her hands together and put under the side of the head and close her eyes; then the teacher says , “I am sleeping”, and use the same way, The teacher can teach the sentences, like "I am running", "I am reading".

4.4 Controlling the class

Posture is a kind of body language. It means that people transmit information and communicate with each other through space distance. In class, body language also has the function of information transmission. When a teacher stands at the rostrum, there will be a sense of distance. Students will naturally respect their teachers. Teachers can also adjust their distance with students according to the needs of teaching activities. When a student comes to the stage, the teacher should stand close to the student, listen carefully, so that he/she can hear the mistakes and correct them in time, and also make the students feel her kindness . When the students are doing exercises, the teacher can walk down the platform, check and guide them. When a student is distracted, speaking or having other bad behaviors, as long as the teacher walks to the students, he/she can make students change their bad behaviors immediately. In these ways, teachers’ body language can be used to control the class.

1. The Advantages of Body Language in English Teaching

In class, body language can be used in teaching, no matter teaching letters, words, or sentences.Compared with vocal language, body language can stimulate students" visual organs more directly. Teaching practice proves that in order to expand the amount of useful information that students send to teachers, it is necessary to increase sensory stimulation to students so as to maintain the excitement of students" cerebral cortex and enhance their information receiving system"s intake function, thereby in the process of improving classroom teaching quality, body language plays a necessary role.

5.1 Arousing student’s interest

Just as an old saying goes, “Interest is the best teacher.”So, attracting and improving the students’ interest is a very important part of English teaching. Body language enables students focused and help them learn English with interest and enthusiasm. In modern English teaching, the role of teachers is to guide and help students learn English, inspire their interests, use creative materials to communicate with students in English, create a happy and relaxed atmosphere, encourage them to participate in the learning process. In the classroom, If teachers have several years of teaching experience, they often use body language to stimulate students" body language to study.The linguist Mr Lu ever said:" The foreign language teacher should be able to perform and dance for joy, made a vivid gesture, movement and countenance as an actor, should not always be gentle and cultivated or just stand stiffly on the platform." For instance, When teachers teach the words of body parts, they can let the students touch their own body parts, this way can not only help them memorize but also stimulate their interest. Therefore Students will love English teachers and English very much. Let"s take a specific example. When the teacher teaches students a word "shy", he writes the word on the blackboard and reads it repeatedly, with severe movements and stiff expressions. The students just read after the teacher several times and they still don"t know the meaning of the word. In comparison, some teachers are not eager to say "shy" but have a shy expression on their faces. Students will easily understand the meaning of the word. By using the body language, the students must be delightful in this class. So body language plays an essential role in arousing the student’s interest.

5.2 Facilitating student’s understanding and adjusting atmosphere

With the continual reform of language teaching and learning methods, teachers are required to organize the classes in English. However with the limitation of students’ vocabulary, teachers have to simplify their teaching language to facilitate student’s understanding.The teacher"s varied expressions, fluent tone, changing rhythm, gestures, changes in body posture, line of sight, and spatial distance can quietly attract students" attention and optimize language teaching. Therefore, teachers" proper use of body language is one of the keys to adjust learning atmosphere and allow students to participate in classroom learning activities easily and happily.

A pleasant learning atmosphere will allow students to participate in the entire teaching process. Teachers" sincere smiles, kind words, encouraging eyes, and expressions of body language in the classroom all create a pleasant atmosphere in the classroom and enable students to develop positive, happy and inspiring emotion and ensure their self-directed learning. The American psychologist James Asher proposed the "Total physic Response" (TPR theory), and according to this theory, the more popular English TPR teaching method is formed, namely the whole body reaction teaching method. This kind of teaching methods depends to a large extent on the rational use of body language. In TPR activities, teachers can coordinate the sensory organs of students through body language movements, which can improve the teaching quality, give full play to the student"s comprehensive ability of imagination, conjecture, and memory, and actively stimulate the classroom atmosphere and facilitate student’s understanding.

5.3 Developing a good relation between students and teachers

Body language can promote mutual communication between teachers and students, so teaching information can be smoothly imparted. Educational psychology research shows that the development and exertion of students" intelligence are influenced by their emotional state in their learning process. The change of students" emotion in the classroom is restricted by the physical behaviors of the teachers, which include expression, eyes, posture, and gesture . They all affect the student"s mood and attitude. The teacher"s positive body language will promote the students’ intellectual development, and the students will have a relaxed, happy and natural feeling. Positive emotions and pleasant moods are conducive to the processing and storage of teaching information, and can stimulate students" learning motivation. Therefore, in the English class, teachers should leave time for students as much as possible, allow students to participate in teaching, and bring into full play initiative of students, such as: self-learning words, performing dialogues, explaining questions, retelling texts and so on. Teachers must believe students, a trusting vision, and an admired smile will give students tremendous spiritual power. Teachers" harmonious and appropriate teaching style will inevitably win the trust and respect of students, keep them interested in learning, and exert their thinking potential, thus an active classroom atmosphere will be formed, and a friendly and harmonious relationship will be established between teachers and students.

5.4 Improving students’ language skills

The purpose of English teaching in middle schools is to improve students" four skills, namely the ability to listen, speak, read, and write. Most students now read and write well. However, it is difficult for them to communicate or express their meaning in English. In the process of junior high school English teaching, the interweaving of body language and vocal language can not only promote the communication between teachers and students, but also correctly reveal the meaning of words and phrases. Thereby students can understand the teaching content easier. At the same time, it can also activate classroom atmosphere, enhance teaching effectiveness, and effectively cultivate students" ability of listening, speaking, reading, and writing so that students can use what they have learned with ease.

5.4.1 Improving students’ ability of listening

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