Effective
nonverbal communication
In
spite of their importance, words are not the only way that teachers and
students communicate. Gestures and behaviors convey information as well, often supporting
a teacher’s words, but sometimes also
contradicting them. Students and teachers express themselves nonverbally in all
conversations, so freely and automatically in fact that this form of
communication can easily be overlooked.
Eye contact
One
important nonverbal behavior is eye contact, which is the extent and
timing of when a speaker looks
directly
at the eyes of the listener. In conversations between friends of equal status,
for example, most native speakers of English tend to look directly at the
speaker when listening, but to avert their gaze when speaking (Kleinke, 1986).
Re-engaging eye contact, in fact, often signals that a speaker is about to
finish a turn and is inviting a response from the listener.
The
nature of classroom communication
But
conversations follow different rules if they involve someone of greater
authority talking with someone of lesser authority, such as between a teacher
and a student. In that case, the person in authority signals greater status by
gazing directly at the listener almost continuously, whether listening or speaking.
This alternate pattern can sometimes prove awkward if either party is not
expecting it. For students unused to continuous eye contact, it can feel like
the teacher is staring excessively, intrusively, or inappropriately; an ironic
effect can be for the student to feel more self-conscious rather than more
engaged, as intended. For similar reasons, inexperienced or first-time teachers
can also feel uncomfortable with gazing at students continuously. Nevertheless
research about the effects of eye contact suggests that it may help anyone,
whether a student or teacher, to remember what they are seeing and hearing
(Mason, Hood, & Macrae, 2004). Communication problems result less from eye
contact as such than from differences in expectations about eye contact. If
students’ expectations differ very much from the teacher’s, one party may
misinterpret the other party’s motivations. Among some non-white ethnic groups,
for example, eye contact follows a pattern that reverses the conventional
white, English-language pattern: they tend to look more intently at a partner
when talking, and avert gaze when listening (Razack, 1998). The
alternative pattern works perfectly well as long as both parties expect it and
use it. As you might imagine, though, there are problems if the two partners
use opposite patterns of eye contact. In that case one person may interpret a
direct gaze as an invitation to start talking, when really it is an invitation
to stop talking. Eventually the conversational partner may find himself
interrupting too much, or simply talking too long at a turn. The converse can
also happen: if the first person looks away, the partner may take the gesture
as inviting the partner to keep listening, when really the first person is
inviting the partner to start talking.
Awkward
gaps between comments may result. In either case, if the conversational
partners are a teacher and student, rapport may deteriorate gradually. In the
first case, the teacher may even conclude, wrongly, that the student is
socially inept because the student interrupts so much. In the second case, the
teacher may conclude—also wrongly—that the student is very shy or even lacking
in language skill.To avoid such misunderstandings, a teacher needs to note and
remember students’ preferred gaze patterns at times when students are free to
look wherever and at whomever they please. Traditional seats-in-a-row desk
arrangements do not work well for this purpose; as you might suppose, and as
research confirms, sitting in rows makes students more likely to look either at
the teacher or to look at nothing in particular (Rosenfeld, Lambert, &
Black, 1985; Razack, 1998). Almost any other seating arrangement, such as
sitting in clusters or in a circle, encourages freer patterns of eye contact.
More comfortable eye contact, in turn, makes for verbal communication that is
more comfortable and productive.
Wait time
Another
important nonverbal behavior is wait time, which is the pause between
conversational turns. Wait time marks when a conversational turn begins or
ends. If a teacher asks a question, for example, the wait time both allows and
prompts students to formulate an appropriate response. Studies on classroom
interaction generally show that wait times in most classes are remarkably
short—less than one second (Good & Brophy, 2002). Unfortunately wait times
this short can actually interfere with most students’ thinking; in one second,
most students either cannot decide what to say or can only recall a simple, automatic
fact (Tobin, 1987). Increasing wait times to several seconds has several
desirable effects: students give longer, more elaborate responses, they express
more complex ideas, and a wider range of students participate in discussion.
For many teachers, however, learning to increase wait time this much takes
conscious effort, and may feel uncomfortable at first. (A trick, if you are
trying to wait longer, is to count silently to five before calling on anyone.)
After a few weeks of practice, discomfort with longer wait times usually
subsides, and the academic benefits of waiting become more evident. As with eye
contact, preferred wait times vary both among individuals and among groups of
students, and the differences in expected wait times can sometimes lead to awkward
conversations. Though there are many exceptions, girls tend to prefer longer
wait times than boys—perhaps contributing to an impression that girls are
unnecessarily shy or that boys are self-centered or impulsive. Students from
some ethnic and cultural groups tend to prefer a much longer wait time than is
typically available in a classroom, especially when English is the student’s
second language (Toth, 2004). When a teacher converses with a member of such a
group, therefore, what feels to the student like a respectful pause may seem
like hesitation or resistance to the teacher. Yet other cultural groups actually prefer overlapping comments—a sort
of negative wait time. In these situations, one conversational partner will
begin at exactly the same instant as the previous speaker, or even before the
speaker has finished (Chami- Sather & Kretschmer, 2005). The negative wait
time is meant to signal lively interest in the conversation. A teacher who is
used to a one-second gap between comments, however, may regard overlapping
comments as rude interruptions, and may also have trouble getting chances to
speak. Even though longer wait times are often preferable, they do not always
work well with certain individuals or groups. For teachers, the most widely useful
advice is to match wait time to the students’ preferences as closely as possible,
regardless of whether these are slower or faster than what the teacher normally
prefers. To the extent that a teacher and students can match each other’s pace,
they will communicate more comfortably and fully, and a larger proportion of
students will participate in discussions and activities. As with eye contact,
observing students’ preferred wait times is easier in situations that give
students some degree of freedom about when and how to participate, such as
open-ended discussions or informal conversations throughout the day.
Social distance
When
two people interact, the physical space or distance between them—their social
distance—often indicates something about how intimate or personal their
relationship is (Noller, 2006). Social distance also affects how people
describe others and their actions; someone who habitually is more distant
physically is apt to be described in more general, abstract terms than someone
who often approaches more closely (Fujita, et al., 2006). In white American
society, a distance of approximately half a meter to a meter is what most
people prefer when talking faceto- face with a personal friend. The closer end
of this range is more common if the individuals turn sideways to each other, as
when riding on an elevator; but usually the closest distances are reserved for
truly intimate friendships, such as between spouses. If the relationship is
more businesslike, individuals are more likely to situate themselves in the
range of approximately one meter to a three meters. This is a common distance,
for example, for a teacher
talking
with a student or talking with a small group of students. For still more formal
interactions, individuals tend to allow more than three meters; this distance
is typical, for example, when a teacher speaks to an entire class. Just as with
eye contact and wait time, however, individuals differ in the distances they
prefer for these different levels of intimacy, and complications happen if two
people expect different distances for the same kind of relationship. A student
who prefers a shorter social distance than her partner can seem pushy or overly
familiar to the partner. The latter, in turn, can seem aloof or unfriendly—literally
“distant”. The sources of these effects are
. The
nature of classroom communication easy to overlook since by definition the
partners never discuss social distance verbally, but they are real. The best
remedy, again, is for teachers to observe students’ naturally occurring
preferences as closely as possible, and to respect them as much as possible:
students who need to be closer should be allowed to be closer, at least within
reasonable limits, and those who need to be more distant should be allowed to be
more distant.
REFERENCE
Educational Psychology
Second Edition
Kelvin Seifert and Rosemary Sutton
Copyright © 2009 Kelvin Seifert
For
any questions about this text, please email: drexel@uga.edu
Editor-In-Chief:
Kelvin Seifert
Associate
Editor: Marisa Drexel
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Assistant: Jackie Sharman
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The
Global Text Project is funded by the Jacobs Foundation, Zurich, Switzerland
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