The Use of Body Language in English Teaching肢体语言在英语教学中的运用.doc

The Use of Body Language in English TeachingAbstract: Nowadays, English learning is more and more important in every school. With the English teaching methods reform, more and more English teachers organize the teaching process in English so that they may realize the Communicated English. But Chinese students in middle school cant speak very well. With the limitation of their vocabulary and expressive ability, teachers have to simplify their teaching language and help them to learn better. Body language used in English teaching is helpful. Teachers can through facial expressions, sign language and gesture language to teach. In this thesis, the necessity and important of using body language will be expounded, the possibility and the effect of using body language in listening, speaking, reading and writing will be further discussed.Key words: Body language, English teaching, listening, reading, speaking, writing. Introduction .With the reform and the continued development of English teaching, new changes have already taken place in English teaching. The conducting of the class teaching develops from single-method to multi-method with the purpose of studentsautonomy-study.To achieve the optimum combination of teaching and learning, the creation of the English learning situation has become increasingly important. Teaching in English becomes the main method of teaching. But Chinese students are good at reading and writing, the ability in listening, speaking is not strong. In such circumstances, we can strive to create a learning environment in English and inspire students to learn, and help them learn. There are many ways to arouse the students interest and help them to learn better, body language used in English teaching is the best one of them. The necessity and important of using body language in English teaching .English teaching is an important part of the school education. Nowadays, the children in preschool have learned some simple English words and sentences. Because they are very young, many English words must through body language to teach them. For example, when we teach “each part of the body”, the use of body language will help the students master what they have learn better. That is to say, when we teach the word “nose”, we can touch our nose with our hand; when we teach the “mouth”, we can touch our mouth with hand. The students in the middle school cant speak very well, neither can they understand why they should use different tones in different time or situation, their vocabulary and expressive ability are limited too. These limitations made it difficult to realize the Communicated English in the classes. According to the students present level and practical situation, body language is required. For instance, when a teacher gives an instruction: “You two, please come to the blackboard.” The students can easily understand it if the teacher looks at (or points to) some two students. Then, the teacher points to the blackboard. The students will carry out the order without obstacle even if they dont hear the key words “blackboard” clearly.From the above, we can learn that the use of body language in English teaching is necessity and important. The use of body language, not only for students to establish a good example, but also shortening the gap between teachers and students. Also creating a harmonious atmosphere for learning. Indeed, teachers can use it to greatly encourage the students studying enthusiasm. In addition, some theoretical and abstract knowledge also need a vivid and clear gesture to make it specific and figurative. . The applying of body language in listening, speaking, reading and writing.In this thesis, the possibility and the effect of using body language in listening, speaking, reading and writing will be further discussed.1. Body language helps to improve listening.The teachers often speak of the four skills- listening, speaking, reading and writing. That means each of them is important. You cant say that you have mastered the language without any one of them. Listening, one of the means of language. Communication is used most widely in peoples daily lives. About 45% of an adults time concerns listening to other people, listening to the radio, listening to the music. In linguistics, giving the students a lot of listening activities is a good way of enlarging their vocabulary. The Greek philosopher Epicteus ever said “Nature has given man one tongue and two ears so 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. To improve the ability of the students listening is basic purpose of English teaching. In this process, if we can use body language, the effect will be much better. For example, when we have the listening part of the lesson of “How do you make a banana smoothie”, the teachers can act out the process of making a banana smoothie with the tape. That is to say, when the tape speak “peel three bananas”, the teachers act out peeling the banana and index three fingers to tell the students the correct amount of the banana is three. So the students can understand better with the help of teachers body movement, the effect is listening can be greatly improved.2. Body language helps to improve speaking.To learn the actual use of language is basic purpose of learning language. The basic purpose of learning English is to communicate with others in English. So the teachers have to improve the students ability of speaking in English teaching. The use of body language can help realize the aim. For example, when we have the lesson “Whats the matter?” the teachers will ask the students to act out the dialogue in pairs. During the practice, the use of the facial expressions and gestures can help the students act out successfully. Student A ask student B “Whats the matter?” the student should press his stomach with suffering facial expression when he answer “I have a stomachache”; when student A advise student B “You should lie down and rest”, he should act out sleeping gestures with his hands holding up his head and his eyes closed. With the help of body language, the class will become interesting and attracting, and the students speaking ability is also improved.We should use body language to create feeling and scenery of activities. Let students happy to learn and love to learn. To learn English well, it must have a language environment. Chinese students learn English, perhaps the most lacking is language environments. Teachers in the teaching should combine the content, create an English-speaking environment for the students as much as possible; create an atmosphere of English culture. 3. Body language helps to improver reading.Reading is an important way of gaining information in foreign language learning. It is a basic skill for a foreign language learner. There is a lot of reading exercises in an examination today. But all these reading must be done in limited time. So students are asked to read them correctly and with a certain speed. In the Middle Schools, the English teachers lay emphasis on improving the reading ability that serves the students further study. Here, we mainly mention the helpfulness of reading aloud. Reading aloud helps the students to get a correct pronunciation, stress and intonation, spelling and meaning. Furthermore, it also helps the students to find out the articles internal feelings and appreciate the beauty of the language. A linguist ever said “A poem is not a poem until it is read.” Reading aloud is basic in the Middle school, and the teachers should make full use of body language to develop the students ability of reading aloud. When reading the sentences, attention should be paid to where to speak softly, emphasize, raise or lower our tone. To make it clear, we can imitate the strong or soft pats that are used in music teaching. Generally speaking, we use falling tones in declarative and special interrogative sentence, first rising tones and them falling tones in the interrogative sentence. But the students in the middle school always confuse them. However, with the help of body language, the problem will be solved easily. For instance, the teachers can use gestures. As they read the choosing sentences, they raise their hands in rising tones and lower in falling tones. Quite soon, the students can successfully imitate teachers gestures and then use then correctly. As a result, there will be no problem in rightly read aloud the sentences at all.In a word, the vivid gesture together with the fluent English can create a good circumstance of learning, which will surely play an active part in improving the students reading ability. 4 Body language helps to improve writing.Writing is one of the four basic skills of learning language, and it is so important a skill that we can even say without it, people cant communicate with others. As an English teacher, he should not only encourage he students to master more vocabulary and knowledge, but also should develop their writing ability in English teaching. But in students opinion, writing is dull and tiring, they dont like having writing lesson. How to improve the effect of writing teaching? The application of body language can help solve the problem in writing teaching.The linguist Franklin ever said, “Tell me, Ill forget; teach me, Ill remember; involve me and Ill learn.” If we asked the students to write an unfamiliar composition, they would probably be unable to and feel discouraged. However, the students can write excellent articles if they have the experience. So in and out of class, we should ask students participate some English-related activities, and then ask them to write it down. For example, after read the play “The necklace”, we can ask students imagine how Mathildes husband felt and what he would do when Mathilde tell him about her meeting with Jeane, and then write a scene to continue the story. It is difficult for the students to write entirely by their imagination. But if we ask them discuss it in groups, next act out it in pairs, and then write it down. The students are deeply impressed by the body movements of their writing acting. Writing is not difficult for them any longer. For example too, let the students write a composition about “The first snow in winter”. The students dont pass the eyes, ears, mouth, nose, the bodys feeling, It is impossible to write a good article. If the teacher has them enjoyed themselves in the beautiful snowing and been given some hints, the students can write a composition which is truly, lively.So body language is also important in writing. It can improves the ability of students writing. For contrast to their complete imagination, the students are deeply impressed by the body movement of the teachers and themselves, which surely leads to a better article. Pay attention to the attentive points when using body language.The primary school students like simulating and they treat the teacher as a model. So teachers body language must be precise and appropriate. Otherwise it will have a bad influence in students. When teachers use body language they should speculate if it is reasonable on students. For example, there is a teacher does an action when teaching the word “bike”. The students perform it to their parents, but the parents can hardly link the action with the word, Such body language will mislead the students and have a bad effect on their comprehension and body expressions in the future. Moreover, the appearance of body language should be timely. It should not appear too early or too late. For the time of the class is limited and precious, teachers must let the body language has its existing value. Conclusion.In short, learning English needs practice. The forty-five minutes in class is very precious and should be cherished, during which the students should practice as much as possible. To exert the limited time, teachers are required to adopt some effective methods. Using body language is necessary for English teachers ability and quality. The use of body language can not only attract the students attention, but also deepen their impression and imagination. The use of body language in English teaching is completely up to the standards of Audio-visual teaching, but also improve the students ability of English such as listening, speaking, reading, writing and integrating skills. So as an English teacher, we should make full use body language to make our class become attractive and effective. Every English teacher should try their best to investigate the functions of body language .The unaffected body language can influence studentsmood, develop their non-intellectual facts and improve their culture. The good and effective body language can let students have the feeling of amiability and harmony.