Teachers' Non-Verbal Communication and its Impact on Learners' Motivation

Abstract

This research entitled,' Teachers' Non-Verbal Communication and its Impact on Learners' motivation' aimed to identify the most frequently used non- verbal behaviors of English teachers in ELT classroom and find out the impact of those behaviors on learners' motivation. Ten Higher Secondary schools and one teacher from each school were selected via purposive judgemental sampling procedure. Eighty students were selected non-randomly from the selected schools. Questionnaire and Teachers' Non-verbal Communication (TNVC) Observation form consisting of various non-verbal behaviors were used as the tools for data collection. Data collection involved classroom observation, questionnaire fill-up and informal discussion with the selected classroom teachers and their students. Various (mean score, percentage, chi-square test) statistical tools were used to analyze the data. The result indicated that the most common non-verbal behaviors exhibited by the teachers were under the category of oculesics (eye contact) and giving lecturers. This study also made it clear that the students were not only conscious of the teachers' Non-Verbal Behaviours (NVBs) but also were very critical about it. The impact of TNVC on majority of the students was very powerful and long lasting. In most of the cases, gender difference was found among students while reacting to their teachers' Non-verbal behaviours (NVBs). The thesis consists of four chapters. Chapter one includes general background (i.e. non-verbal communication) followed by introduction of the theoretical aspects of NVC such as forms of NVC, functions of NVC and needs of NVC. It also includes importance of NVC in ELT classroom, distinction between verbal communication (VC) and NVC as well. Chapter two deals with the methodology. It includes sources of data, sampling procedure, tools for data collection, process of data collection and the limitations of the study. Chapter three presents the analysis and interpretation of the data collected from the informants. Chapter four presents the findings, recommendations and pedagogical implications of the study. The references and appendices are given at the end.