From what is said above it can be seen that it is very important for the oral English teacher of English to make his students aware of the differences of non-verbal behavior in different cultures. Only when the students have realized these differences, can they encode their message in an appropriate way and decode the other people’s message correctly. For example, generally speaking, the interpersonal distance between Chinese speakers is shorter than that between westerners. And usually people in the English speaking countries speak in a lower voice than Chinese speakers. Another characteristic of non-verbal behavior Chinese speakers and western English speakers is that there are much fewer facial expressions and gestures with the former. The teacher, therefore, can encourage his students to observe the native English speakers’ non-verbal behavior intentionally in order to obtain more information and learn to make use of these non-verbal techniques of communication to improve their own communicative skills.
All in all, as an oral English teacher, firstly, he/she should consciously introduce some basic knowledge of non-verbal behavior which must be paid great attention to, while teaching some fundamental knowledge of English language, such as the question of the instance when talking with foreigners. Therefore, in such situation, the oral English teacher can introduce four different distances standing for four different situations in American social contact and business talk. That is, Edward Hall calculated acceptable distances for public, social-consultative, personal, and intimate discourse. Suppose both sides are of intimate relationship, they will have the distance of less than 45cm or even direct contact. Of course, it can only happen when the two sides are of the most intimate relation. For example, a husband and a wife. When talking between friends, acquaintances and relatives, the distance is better controlled between 45cm and 80cm. While in the situation of common social activity, the two sides should keep the distance from 1.3m to 3m. In big social party, talkers generally keep the distance from1.3m to 2m.In public places, the distance is even farther. For instance, giving a speech, teaching in class, the distance between the listeners and the speaker is very far. Getting the knowledge of the distance, the students will be aware when they talk to foreigners.
On the other hand, the gestures of ambiguity can’t be ignored, for the same gesture may have different meanings in different culture and speech communities. Therefore, teacher must help students understand the difference and use non-verbal behavior correctly and properly.
From what has been presented above, it can be seen that non-verbal behavior plays an important role in successful communication. It can provide the speaker with extra device in expressing his intended meaning. Additionally, it can help the speaker to become more impressive and expressive in conveying his intended message to the hearer so as to reach his goal of communication more readily. Therefore, being a teacher of oral English, it will be of great benefit if he/she can fully understand the implications of non-verbal behavior in successful communication and help the students to be aware of the advantages of it in communication and be able to make full use of it in effective oral interaction.
Conclusion
Non-verbal behavior is increasingly drawing people’s great attention. It is quite valuable in education, because the aim of foreign language teaching is not only to teach language knowledge, but also develop student’s ability of social language and cultural communication. Therefore, non-verbal behavior plays an important role in foreign language teaching, especially in oral English teaching. Teacher’s personality, students’ anticipation, gestures, tone and facial expressions can make great differences to students’ acquisition. It will directly contribute to foreign language teaching, strengthen the relationship between teachers and students and improve and develop students’ ability of communication and application of language.
References
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[2]Ekman, P. (ed.). Darwin and Facial Expression: A Century of Research in Review. [M]. New York: Academic Press, 1973:78.
[3]Streek, J & M.L.Knapp. Advances in Nonverbal Communication [M]. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 1992:195-196.
[4]Knapp, M. Nonverbal Communication in Human Interaction [M]. Toronto: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1997:250.
[5]Bi, Jiewan. In A Dictionary of British and American Culture [M]. Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press Publishers, 1995:298-301.
[6]Samovar, L. A. & R.E.Porter. Intercultural Communication: A Reader [M]. Belmont: Wadsworth Publishing Company, 1985:1-2.
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[8]曾葡初.初中英语课堂教学研究[M]. 长沙：湖南师范大学出版社,1999:22.转贴于 酷文网-论文下载中心 http://www.coolwen.net
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