肢体语言英语课堂初中英语教学

Contents
Abstract(in Chinese) (3)
Abstract(in English) (4)
1. Introduction (5)
1.1 Research Background (5)
1.2 Research Significance (6)
2. Literature Review (7)
2.1 Definition of Body Language (7)
2.2 Previous Researches on Body Language (7)
2.2.1 Previous Researches on Body Language Abroad (7)
2.2.2 Previous Researches on Body Language at Home (8)
3. The Necessity and Importance of Using Body Language in English Teaching (8)
3.1 Using Body Language Strengthen the Teacher’s Charm (9)
3.2 Using Body Language Arouse the Student’s Interests (9)
3.3 Using Body Language Establish more Smooth Interpersonal Relation
Between Teachers and Students (9)
3.4 Using Body Language Make the Teaching Become Simpler (10)
4. The Principles of Using Body Language in English Teaching (10)
4.1 Subsidiarity (11)
4.2 Accuracy (11)
4.3 Consensus (11)
4.4 Flexibility (11)
5. The Application of Body Language in English Teaching.12 5.1 The Application of Body Language in Teaching V ocabulary (12)
5.2 The Application of Body Language in Teaching Grammar (13)
5.3 The Application of Body Language in Teaching Listening (13)
5.4 The Application of Body Language in Teaching Speaking (14)
6. Questionnaires (15)
7. Conclusion (15)
7.1 Main Findings (16)
7.2 Limitations and Suggestions (16)
References (17)
中学英语教学中肢体语言的运用
摘要
肢体语言，作为信息交流的一个重要组成部分,在日常生活中起着至关重要的作用。

肢体语言的应用可以促进信息交流的顺利进行,以及获得充分有效的反馈信息。

教师在英语教学的课堂上合理地运用肢体语言可以引导学生，培养学生学习英语的兴趣，甚至可以为学生创设一个与当前学习主题相关的、尽可能真实的学习环境。

以便学生更直观、更有效、更直接地投身于英语学习中。

本文主要介绍身势语的定义及其运用原则，以及在英语教学中对学习的促进作用，进一步探讨了肢体语言在英语课堂中的运用，以此引起公众对肢体语言的重视，使其被合理运用到英语教学。

关键词:肢体语言；英语课堂；初中；英语教学
The Application of Body Language in Middle School English Teaching
Abstract
Following the continuous acceleration of the globalizing economy, international population movements become more frequent, and English has become the most widely used language in the world. Teachers have to spent more time studying language teaching. In the English classroom, although intuitive language is the most convenient and economical teaching method, teachers also need to use gestures, eyes, movements and postures to assist teaching. The application of body language in English teaching can give students some authentic examples to help students build a real life environment for learning English so that they can acquire and apply English without being aboard. This article will briefly introduce the application of body language to emphasize the importance of body language and discuss how to use body language.
Key words: body language; English teaching; implication
1.Introduction
1.1 Research Background
According to the current educational system, with Chinese universal teaching methods and the average teaching standards, an army of students’ enthusiastic for English learning is not high, their English ability is uneven, a series of problems appear in the actual use of foreign languages. Under this circumstance, they have difficulties in actual communicative competence. In most parts of China, the traditional teaching model is handed down from generations to generations, leading a huge gap between the main skills: listening, speaking, reading and writing. Students are unable to establish a positive subject emotion, English learning interest gradually decrease, and even hate to learn English. Furthermore, they fell into “Dumb English”, which means not really master the ability of listening and speaking.
It’s not easy for middle school students to learn English well, because English as a foreign language is not like the native language. This is a completely different or even strange thing for Chinese students. Therefore, when a person wants to learn English well, he must have confidence and interest to support his persistent study. In this situation, interest is very important, it is a stepping stone to the path of English learning. As the saying goes, “interest is the best teacher.” It’s absolutely a truth. It’s painful to be forced to study. Suppose a person is interested in something, then he will open his eyes, open his mind and heart to search and accept things what related to it. This is as same as English learning. In the context of exam-oriented education, the traditional English teaching mode is difficult to make students have a sense of participation. The classroom atmosphere is inactive and the classroom teaching is inefficiency. Students have a psychological resistance to learn English, just to study for the test. In addition, traditional English teaching methods only allow students to passively accept knowledge, which lacks fun. Students do not feel the pleasure of learning, and gradually lose their interest and enthusiasm for learning. Their learning state changes from active to passive, and psychological state change from optimistic to depressed. In consequence, their learning efficiency is greatly influenced to some extent and apt to lock into a destructive circle. Therefore, the current primary task is to find a feasible English teaching method to help students get out of the learning predicament.
In recent years, another situation has prevailed among students. Plenty of students who have large vocabularies in their minds, have a high reading ability and a pretty good writing ability to create essays, but when a passerby comes from abroad to ask for directions, they could not speak English fluently but smile with awkwardness. It’s our long-term traditional teaching models leading to this result. Even worse, compared with schools in urban areas, this situation is more common and serious in schools in remote areas.
In my opinion, lacking of corresponding English listening and speaking skills
will cause a series of problems. For example, reduce students’ communicative ability and degree the function of English communication. It is reported that 30% of the children still fail the English exam. The current status of English learning is not optimistic, especially for students in rural areas where educational resources are relatively scarce, there is an urgent need to find a breakthrough and find a suitable teaching method to make up for the shortcomings of this average teaching mode.
1.2 Research Significance
With the development of society, people have higher and higher demands on English teachers. They need good teaching skills to improve students’ English learning. Fortunately, body language has become their first choice. It is one of the most effective teaching methods and has many important functions. So this paper is trying to make a devotion to it. English as a language is used for communication. English teaching should also be a process of communication throughout the classroom. Research indicates that there are two classifications of communication-verbal communication and nonverbal communication, and that communication itself is a two-way process and also a process of continuously sending and receiving information, which enables human beings to share knowledge, attitudes, and skills with each other. According to Professor Albert Mehrabian, “only 7% of a message is conveyed verbally, through words. The other 93% is split between tone of voice (38%) and body language (55%).’’ Therefore, if teachers can accurately use body language in the classroom, it will play an active role in the classroom atmosphere, improve classroom efficiency, and increase students’ enthusiasm for learning English. In general, people often use nonverbal signals unconsciously in their daily lives, and can’t help using these signals to know about what the interlocutor wants to express. Studies have shown that people generally believe that language has its own limitations, and sometimes many people’s feelings and emotions cannot be expressed in language. In addition, they believe that the inner world is usually directly reflected by nonverbal signals. Therefore, we say the verbal communication is the carrier of the accurate information in conversations, and non-verbal language is its important supplement. The two complement each other. It is divided into two parts—the nonverbal behavior and the nonverbal means.
In addition, since the middle of the last century, body language, as an emerging and developing discipline, has gradually aroused widespread concern in society. In fact, there are few domestic studies on the use of body language in low-level English teaching.
Therefore, this article aims to provide readers with a new perspective to face the current situation and prominent problems of the current domestic middle school English teaching. Try to find a suitable teaching method to cultivate students’ interest in learning. Improve students’ self-learning ability, use English as a communication tool rather than an exam subject.
2.Literature Review
2.1 Definition of Body Language
What is body language? Body language is also defined as gesture language and nonverbal communication. Generally speaking, it refers to a special language that uses the various body movements instead of the language itself to express expressions. Body language has departed into broad and narrow definition. The narrow definition of body language refers to the communication between the head, the eyes, the neck, the hands, the elbows, the arms, the body, the ankles, the legs, the feet and other parts of the human body to convey information to the communication object, thereby expressing a communication method of expressions; In addition to the information conveyed by the body and the limbs, the broad definition of body language also includes the meaning expressed by facial expressions.
2.2. Previous Researches on Body Language
2.2.1. Previous Researches on Body Language Abroad
The study of body language began in ancient Greece and Rome (600—400 BC). Ancient Greece is not only the cradle of European civilization, but also the cradle of nonverbal communication researches. The ancient Greeks believed that whether standing or walking, the body should be beautiful as well as elegant. After the Second World War, humans began to study nonverbal communication. Nevertheless, the early 20st century, Darwin’s famous book The Expression of the Emotion in Man and Animal (1872) had huge impact on modern nonverbal communication. Until the first half of twentieth Century, the body language research has not yet formed a complete system; it mainly focused on sound, appearance, clothing and facial expressions, such as Kretschmer’s Physique and Character (1925) and The Variation of Human Physique(1940), Efron’s Gesture and Environment (1941).
In 1950s, there was a breakthrough in the study of body language. Edward T.Hall’s The Silent Language(1959) and Birdwhistell’s Introduction to Kinesics (1952) are two milestones of that age. During the 70s, many research results were summarized, and a mass of works were published, such as J.Fast’s Body Language (1970).
Then came the further development of body language in the 80s. The trend of that period focused on the various ways nonverbal behaviors were used to achieve some common communicative purposes. In addition, researchers posited that nonverbal behaviors often influence the demeanors of teachers and students (Woolfolk &Brooks, 1985). A sequence of experiments was conducted to show the effect on classroom teaching.
In early twenty-first Century, the study of body language was more specific. For example, the British scholar Peter Garrett’s work the Secret of Body Language (2006),
the author conducted a comprehensive analysis of the secret of human body language. In recent years, there have been more and more researches and studies on non-verbal communication, including the impact of non-verbal communication on classroom teaching, which has made a tremendous contribution to related research in this field. 2.2.2 Previous Researches on Body Language at Home
If you want to investigate the use of body language in Chinese culture, you can probably trace it back to the Pre-Qin Period. Confucius, a great educator in our country, attached special importance to ethics and rites and hoped that everyone would treat others with courtesy. And the classic work The Analects written by his students has been regarded as the first work which dabbled in the body language, “Do not learn ritual, without aspiration” in The Analects first to stress the importance of nonverbal communicative behaviors. In addition, Confucius put forward the view of “silent”, considering “the word” as a kind of signal when people get along with each other, but “silent” is also a kind of meaningful signal.
In the late 1980s, Chinese scholars began to conduct special research on body language, and the representatives mainly are: Hu Wenzhong, Geng ErLing, Bi Jiwan, Meng Xiaoping. But the first book in China on body language is Geng Erling’s An Introduction of Body Language Published by Beijing Language Institute Press in 1988. As time goes by, more and more Chinese linguists, psychologists, sociolinguistics and language teachers have studied nonverbal communication in depth. It involves more and more fields, from international social etiquette to the application to classroom teaching.
At the beginning of Twenty-first Century, the domestic works on nonverbal language communication includes the Introduction of Nonverbal Communication (2000) written by Li Jiequn, the chief editor of that book, and, Body Language, The More Effective Communication Skills Than Speaking (2007) compiled by Li Wei. In addition, publications and academic journals related to the field of education have also made positive contributions, promoting the further development of research. 3.The Necessity and Importance of Using Body Language in English Teaching
3.1 Using Body Language Strength the Teacher’s Charm
Study is the role model, behavior world fan. Teachers should master correct postures behavior, it is not only teachers’ civilization accomplishment, but also links to the teachers’ profession image. The personality development of students is deeply influenced by body language. Students are taught to respect their teachers, so at some point, students may imitate (sometimes subconsciously) the teacher’s tone of voice or
actions to do things. In short, students’ artistic appreciation and moral quality can be improved by teachers’ beautiful body language. If students develop their own unique and elegant body language through imitation, this may make them feel happy and positive. They will surely have a more harmonious interpersonal relation. So appropriate, elegant, abound individual glamour body languages still can deepen the teacher’s impression in students’ hearts.
3.2 Using Body Language Arouse the Student’s Interests
A famous person ever said, “Interest is the best teacher.” Therefore, it is important for English teachers to attract and improve the students’ interest in English learning. There are many ways to arouse the students’ interest. One of the best ways to teach English is to use body language. 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.”
In order to respond positively to the new curriculum standard teaching reform, improve the efficiency of classroom teaching. Teachers should renew their teaching concepts, optimize their teaching methods, and actively stimulate students’ interest in learning. The teaching effect will be greatly improved if every student can devote himself to the English class. In this case, the beginning of teaching is especially important. Famous linguist Franklin Edgerton once said, “Tell me, I forget. Teach me, I remember. Involve me, I’ll learn.” This requires us to use body language correctly. For example, an English teacher can start his class with an English song that everyone is familiar with to arouse students’ interest. Teacher can use the song “If you are happy, clap your hands”. But the students don’t understand what are the meaning of “clap your hands” “stamp your feet” “touch your body”. In this case, the teacher immediately adds body language, and the students immediately realize that they follow her singing and did actions. The strong sense of rhythm and rich body language make students have a strong interest in this lesson, making the whole lesson very active.
3.3 Using Body Language Establish More Harmonious Interpersonal Relation Between Teachers and Students Body language can help improve students’ English learning level and master certain listening, speaking and reading skills. It helps to establish a good teacher-student relationship and narrow the distance between teachers and students.
A good teacher-student relationship is conducive to improving the efficiency of classroom teaching, helping students develop their ingenuity, and also conducive to the physical and mental health of teachers and students. Body language is a wonderful tool for communicating and expressing opinions with others. Seeing the teacher’s appreciative eyes, the students are always more focused, actively expressing themselves and enhancing the confidence of learning; a look of expectation and encouragement can encourage those students who are generally timid, afraid to speak
and passive in answering teachers’ questions. In my class, there is a student who is too timid to answer questions. Every time she takes the initiative to answer questions, I always erect the thumb and let her develop the habit of dare to speak and speak loudly in the eyes that the teacher expects and encourages. Don’t look at the students with blaming eyes when they make a wrong answer. Otherwise, it will hurt their self-esteem and dispel their enthusiasm for learning English. Through the teacher’s positive emotional performance, such as smiling, encourage, expect, caress and other non-verbal behaviors, subtlety passed to the students. Enable students to receive positive emotional information while accepting knowledge. In the trust, love and respect of teachers, they create positive emotional recognition from teachers from the heart, thus building a harmonious teacher-student relationship.
3.4 Using Body Language Make the Teaching Become Simpler
With the development of the times, the teaching methods are constantly reformed, and teachers are required to create a good language learning environment and do well in English classroom teaching. However, because students seldom recite words and have less vocabulary. Teachers have to use body language to make teaching more concise and clear. The theoretic and abstraction characteristics of knowledge also need the vivid and an accessible body language to make it easier to understand and master. For instance, when the students learn a new word, the students can guess what it means from teachers’ body language.
4.The Principles of Using Body Language in English Teaching
4.1 Subsidiarity
Although body language is an important part of language teaching, it can’t completely take the place of speech acts and become the main method of classroom teaching. On the contrary, the use of body language must be explained with the help of language explanations to make it more perfect. Otherwise, as the teacher of the deaf-mute school gives the class to the students, there is a lot of trouble and inconvenience in the painting, which makes people feel that it is a waste of time and little effect. In classroom teaching, body language is an important auxiliary tool to increase the effect of expression. Although it can also transmit information to students independently in a specific situation, its role is mainly reflected in the cooperation with speech acts. We can’t use body language instead of spoken language to carry out “dumb” teaching.
4.2 Accuracy
Accurate is the “life” of body language. If the body language loses its accuracy, there is no interaction. Therefore, teachers must use body language correctly in teaching, and they can’t do whatever they want. This principle has three requirements: First of all, express your emotions accurately. Fulling of love for a student’s progress, but her face is frosty; she criticizes a student’s mistakes, but smiles, which are serious mistakes in the use of body language.
Second, symbolic actions should be accurate. Such as give a thumbs up to praise, nod to indicate affirmation or answer to the students, the meaning of these symbolic body language is fixed, is a customary, that everyone can understand its meaning. If you lift a finger other than the thumb to express praise, and shake your head to indicate affirmation, then the student will fall into the clouds, do not know the teacher’s intention.
Finally, the use of body language to explain things should be accurate. Teachers must use body language appropriately to assist the explanation. Proper and appropriate body language makes it easier for students to accept the information that the teacher wants to transmit. On the other hand, if the explanation is inaccurate, it will lead the students’ thinking in a wrong direction and form a wrong knowledge system in their mind.
4.3 Consensus
In order to help students understand and absorb information, teachers usually use body language. If the student can’t understand the teacher’s body language, or both teachers and students have different understandings of the same body language, this will hinder the transmission of information in the classroom. Therefore, this requires teachers to follow the principle of teacher-student consensus. Improper use of body language will have a negative impact on students. Teachers must use body language reasonably in English teaching activity. The body language used must be mastered by teachers and students. It must be in accordance with the nationality or the present regional cultural traditions and ethics. Of course, teachers can develop their own unique ways and characteristics through various practical teaching and study others’ teaching styles, can also have their own “special provisions”, but these provisions must be accepted by students before they can really take effect.
4.4 Flexibility
The teacher’s body language has both a customary side and a flexible side. Therefore, teachers should follow another principle when using body language-the principle of flexibility. The principle of flexibility is the embodiment of teacher education wit and teaching inspiration. Different teaching content should choose different body language; students with different personality, gender and different intelligence levels should choose different body language; different education, teaching time should choose different body language; different educational teaching situations should choose different body language. These are the specific requirements
for the flexibility principle. If these requirements are violated, the body language will not only exert a positive effect, but will have a negative impact on education and teaching.
5.The Application of Body Language in English Teaching
e
5.1 The Application of Body Language in Teaching V ocabulary
In English classes, there are many ways to teach words such as by describe and draw; by using real objects to express the meaning; or by using word formation rules and common affix (Wang Qiang, 2000 ), but the most convenient way of these is by making use of body language. For instance, when teaching the words “shopping”, the teacher can take out a skirt prepared in advance, invite a student to act as a customer, and act as a salesperson himself. Through the dialogue and movement of teachers and students, can simulate the shopping scene and teach new words, this will leave the students deep impression. Of course gestures can also be used to teach many words. Certain body parts words, such as “leg”, “foot”, “arm”, “neck” and “fingernail” can lend themselves to gestures. Place prepositions can also be effectively taught through actions, for example: Action verbs can be acted out the old man is walking the dog, she is skating, and he is playing the computer games. Other words expressing actions and feelings such as jump, swim, fly, eat, play the violin, old, hot, hungry, all can be taught through body language. In this teaching method, students use their eyes, brains, hands, and mouths at the same time, so body language help students to remember new words.
For example, in the topic “What sweet music” there are some new musical instrument words, which are a little difficult for students to master, such as piano, violin, guitar, drum, erhu. When teaching the word piano, the teacher can stretch out ten fingers to make it look like he is playing the piano, then teacher ask students “What am I doing?” Students may answer “You are playing the piano.” “Yes, you are so smart, this word is piano, it is a new word that you need to mater.” The word displayed in this is are more intuitive and students can master this word more easily. Similarly, when teaching the word violin, the teacher can pretend to have a violin stand on his shoulder and the other hand pretend to play the violin. Then the teacher asks students “Can you guess what I am doing?” “You are playing the violin.” “Great, this word is violin, now read this word three times together.” By combining body language with reading aloud, students grasp the word quickly.
Not only can body language plays an active role in the teaching of some new words, but also can vividly express the differences between some words. For example, when talking about the difference between smile and laugh, it is not effective if the
teacher use words to tell the difference between the two words. Facial expressions are more effective. Teachers can use face, eyes, and mouth to make a “silent smile” during explanations, so that students understand what smile is, and then open his mouth to make a sound to express what is laugh so that students will understand: smile is a silent laugh, and laugh is a loud laugh. Similarly, sad (worried) and happy, easy and difficult can be distinguished by facial language. Like run and walk, quick and slow, light and heavy, put on and take off, etc. can be compared and memorized with body language. Of course, there are many examples of the use of body language in this area, such as stand up and sit down, come here and go there, the difference between numbers and prepositions in azimuth.
5.2 The Application of Body Language in Teaching Grammar
The use of body language makes the grammar knowledge not so abstract and easier to understand, and it also makes the grammar class less boring than it was. Body language is not just a teacher’s performance, but should students involve in. Students can take an active part in the grammar lesson. I will just give an example to show this: when teaching the “present progressive and past progressive”, a teacher told a student Jim: “Jim, go to close the door”, while Jim is doing that, the teacher wrote on the blackboard and said: “Jim is closing the door”, then teacher explain what present progressive is, so the feature of present progressive will easily be understood. After that, the teacher can ask another student Jane to pretend that she just went to the bathroom and missed the class, and then invite another student Mike to tell Jane. There is no doubt that Mike would said: “Jim was closing the door just now.” Then teacher wrote on the blackboard: “Jim was closing the door just now.” and explain the feature of past progressive. The two sentences:
Teacher said: “Jim is closing the door.”
Mike said: “Jim was closing the door just now.”
Come from what the students acted out. So they will easily understand the difficulties of grammar, and by this vivid teaching method, the curiosity and interest of students will be greatly improved, and the grammar lesson will become more lively and interesting, and the goal of grammar teaching will be better accomplished.
5.3 The Application of Body Language in Teaching Listening
The Greek philosopher Epictetus ever wittily said, “Nature has given man one tongue and two ears that he may hear twice as much as he speaks.” From the saying we can learn how important the listening is in our daily life. Teachers often train students’ listening by their own speech in class or by playing tape (Wang Qiang, 2000). During these processes, teachers should use body language to improve students’ ability to capture material information, and improve students’ listening ability. Teachers and students are taught face to face. When the teacher speaks in the class, it is accompanied by a series of body languages that students can observe. For example, teachers point at some object or in certain directions, teachers take a chalk and pretend to write on the blackboard when they say “write down the words”, these visual movements help students understand what they hear and improve the accuracy。