چکیده:
One of the significant aspects of the communication is its nonverbal aspect. In this study there was an attempt to explore this aspect of language teaching qualitatively from the learners’ point of view through observation and interview in Iranian context. It was revealed that four main categories of nonverbal communication(NVC) including: hand gesture, eye-contact, facial expression and tone of voice are used from the most frequently used to the least used respectively. Moreover, it was found that a teacher’s use of nonverbal communication can help learners to get more benefit from the learning context. Also, the findings indicate how utilizing NVC may contribute to different aspects (vocabulary, grammar, and pronuciation) of language learning. According to the students’ comments, six main themes as different roles of the teacher were found including: Teacher as a composer, Teacher as a constructor, Teacher as a mirror, Teacher as a conductor, Teacher as a mentor, and Teacher as a vocalist. Keywords: non-verbal, communication, lanugage learning, qualitative study, perception.
خلاصه ماشینی:
It was revealed that four main categories of nonverbal communication(NVC) including: hand gesture, eye-contact, facial expression and tone of voice are used from the most frequently used to the least used respectively.
This phenomenon happens in the classroom context all the time, and communicators (the teacher and students) use the power of gestures and other nonverbal behaviors consciously and unconsciously.
Instrumentation The instruments include: (1) Classroom Observation: In this phase of the study which lasted a full semester of six months I, as one of the researchers, participated in the class as an observer in order to record all the teacher's and students' verbal and nonverbal interactions carefully for later analysis.
As the classroom events were recorded, I took notes of the important points related to the teacher’s way of teaching, specifically her use of the nonverbal communication in her teaching process and even the students’ reactions.
How language learners perceive teacher’s NVC Behnaz: I think facial expression can be helpful in the class specifically in teaching dialogues.
The interviews with the students and observing their behaviors and reac- tions towards the teacher, as she tried to show the meaning of words, indicated that they were aware of her facial expression beside her verbal communication in teaching and explaining the vocabularies.
This view is in line with the results in the study con- ducted by McCroskey, Fayer, Richmond, Sallinen, and Barraclough (1996) that eye- contact, vocal variety and smiling were the nonverbal behaviors which were highly related to the effective learning.