DOCUMENT RESUME FL 023 090 ED 384 243 Bancroft, W. Jane AUTHOR Research in Nonverbal Communication and Its TITLE Relationship to Pedagogy and Suggestopedia. PUB DATE 95 NOTE 39p. Resea:ch/Technical (143) Reports PUB TYPE MF01/PCO2 Plus Postage. EDRS PRICE *Brain Hemisphere Functions; Cognitive Style; Foreign DESCRIPTORS Countries; *Lateral Dominance; Learning Strategies; *Nonverbal Communication; Nonverbal Learning; Second Language Instruction; *Suggestopedia; Teacher Influence; Teaching Methods ABSTRACT Nonverbal communication in the classroom can produce subtle nonverbal influences, particularly in the affective domain. In Suggestopedia, double-planeness (the role of the environment and the personality of the teacher) is considered an important factor in learning. Suggestopedic teachers are trained to use nonverbal gestures in their presentation of the lesson material and pantomime to suggest the meaning of new words in an unknown language. Positive facial expressions, eye contact, and body movement are used to project self-confidence and competence. Verbal and nonverbal behaviors are harmonized so that students receive the same positive message of support and encouragement on both the conscious and unconscious level. Voice qualities of the teacher and environmental factors are also emphasized in the suggestopedic method. Number of students, seating arrangement, wall colors, physical distrAnce between teacher and student(s), and lightingare all considered. Suggestopedia incorporates the main elements of modern, Western nonverbal communication theory, although there is no evidence that its developer, Georgi Lozanov, was influenced by it at the institute in Sofia, Bulgaria. Areas which have a bearing on Lozanov's Suggestopedia and which are discussed are: paralanguage, kinesics, proxemics, environment, and oculesics. (Contains 28 notes and references.) (Author/NAV) *********************************************************************** * Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made * from the original document. *********************************************************************** e. Research in Nonverbal Communication and its Relationship to Pedagogy and Suggestopedia W. Jane Bancroft REPRODUCE THIS PERMISSION TO BY U.S. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION BEEN GRANTED MATERIAL HAS Once of Educational Research and .mpro..iernent ED_CATIONAE RE SOURCES INFORMATION .:\sC"- (-\ CENTER tERICt ...0Tr-us document has been reproclu, ed as .received horn the person vii moanualion originating it Minor changes have (wen made to improve ! reprodur tion quautr RF',OURoES EDUCATIONAL TO THE Points of view or opinions staled in 1.5 chrt u NI ER (ERIC.) menl Oo not necessarily iepieSent INFORMATION L.E OE RI position or policy BEST COPY AVAILABLE Research in Nonverbal Communication and its Relationship to Pedagogy and Suggestopedia W.Jane Bancroft, Scarborough Campus, University of Toronto Abstract Nonverbal communication plays an important role in education. In the classroom, subtle nonverbal influences can have dramatic results, particularly in the affective domain. In Suggestopedia, double-planeness (the role of the environment and the personality of the teacher) is considered to be an important factor in learning. Research in nonverbal comm mication can be divided into the following areas: 1) kinesics or body motion; 2) physical characteristics; 3) oculesics (thestudyofm .-,EAsages sent by the eyes); 4) haptics or touching behavior; 5) paralanguage or vocalics; 6) pro- xemics (the study of social and personal space); 7) artifacts; 8) the environment. Those categories which have a bearing on Suggestopedia are 1, 3, 5, 6 and 8. Suggestopedic teachers are trained to use gestures in their presentation of the lesson material and pantomime to suggest the meaning of new words in the foreign language. They use positive facial expressions and eye contact as well as body movement to pro- ject self-confidence and competence. While playing a high-status role, they also radiate warmth and spontaneity as well as concern and liking for their students. Verbal and nonverbal behaviors are harmonized so that students receive the same positive message of support and encouragement at both the conscious and unconscious levels. Great importance is attached in Suggestopedia to the voice qualities of the teacher. He/she is expected to vary the pitch, loudness and tempo of his/her speech in the manner of a well-trained actor. "Immediacy" is communicated through positive emotions and laughter. Several tones of voice are used in the formal presentation of the new lesson material. During the passive concert session, a soft, soothing persuasive tone is achieved for the artistic reading of the lesson-text over baroque music Careful attention was paid at the Institute of Suggestology to environmental factors in learning. Classrooms were small but pleasant and attractive, with windows that opened out onto a rose garden. Pale colors and soft lighting were utilized. Various kinds of music were used to create pleasant sounds in particular, soft and slow- moving music during the original passive (or relaxation) session. The number of students was restricted to twelve per class and teachers were able to move freely in the classroom and to interact with all class members. The students, when seated, V ere arranged in an "ideal" circular or horseshoe arrangement with the instructor, a., the dominant figure, at the head. The two proxemic cues that signal communication "immediacy" were also used in language classes at the Institute of Suggestology, viz. body orientation of the teacher; close physical distance between instructor and students. There is no evidence that Lozanov was influenced by Western (and, in particular, American) research in nonverbal communication; nonetheless, Suggestopedia incorporates the main elements of this "modern" area of research. Research in Nonverbal Communication and its Relationship to Pedagogy and Suggestopedia W. Jane Bancroft The term "nonverbal" is commonly used to describe all events of human communication that transcend spoken or written words. According to Mark Knapp,1 nonverbal communication should not be studied as an isolated unit but as an inseparable part of the total communication process. (Nonverbal communication may serve to repeat, contradict, substitute for, complement [or elaborate on], accent [or emphasize] or regulate verbal communication). However, nonverbal communication is important because of the role it plays in the total communication system, the tremendous quantity of information cues it gives in any particular situation and because of its use in such fundamental areas of our daily life as politics, medicine, the arts, advertising, television ("the medium is the message"), education, job interviews, courtship. It has been said, for example, that when we receive contradictory messages on the verbal and nonverbal levels, we are more likely to trust and believe in the nonverbal message. It is assumed that nonverbal signals are more spontaneous, harder to fake and less apt to be manipulated. (lt has also been speculated that those who prefer nonverbal cues over verbal ones show a right-brain dominance). that, in a normal two-person conversation, the verbal components Estimates have it carry less than 35 percent of the social meaning of the situation; more than 65 percent of the social meaning is carried on the nonverbal level. Learning has a cognitive domain, an affective domain and a psychomotor domain. The cognitive domain of learning deals with the attainment of knowledge and the acquisition of intellectual and analytical abilities and skills. The affective domain is concerned with teaching effects which have some "emotional overtone": student likes 4 2 and dislikes, attitudes, values, beliefs, appreciations and interests. (The third domain, the psychomotor domain, emphasizes muscular or motor skill and is mainly concerned with the student's ability to reproduce a neuromuscular coordination task). In most learning environments, attention is usually focused on the cognitive domain. The affective domain, centered around the creation of positive feelings, is, however, very important in the media age. The nonverbal as well as the verbal messages that teachers employ have an important effect on students' liking for the teacher, the subject matter and the discipline area. Subtle nonverbal influences in the classroom can sometimes have dramatic results. According to Rosenthal in Pygmalion in the Classroom, "by what she said, by how and when she said it, by her facial expressions, postures, and perhaps by her touch, the teacher may have communicated to the children of the experimental group that she expected improved intellectual performance."2 Expectations can be transmitted nonverbally. According to Neill, enthusiastic instructors use more marked nonverbal signals, such as gestures and range of intonation, than would be normal in informal social interaction. (They also tend to give much more intense listening signals). 3 Andersen found that half of the variation in student liking for teachers was associated with the kind of nonverbal communication the teachers employed.4 Teachers who use positive gestures, eye contact and smiles produce interpersonal closeness, reduce psychological distF.-..,e and have a positive impact on student performance.5 Most research on the subject of nonverbal communication dates from the 1960's and 1970's; however, there are some important predecessors in this area. Darwin's The Expression of Emotion in Man and Animals (1872) has been highly influential in the modern study of facial expressions; Kretschmer's Physique and Character (1925) 0 3 and Sheldon's The Variations of Human Physique (1940) laid the foundation for work on body types; Efron's Gesture and Environment (1941) introduced innovative ways of studying body language, set forth the important roie of culture in shaping many of our gestures and constructed a framework for classifying nonverbal behaviors which influences researchers today. Anthropologists Ray Birdwhistell (Introduction to Kinesics [1952]) and Edward Hall (The Silent Language [1959]) founded research programs in kinesics and proxemics, respectively. Psychiatrist Jurgen Ruesch and photographer Weldon Kees authored the first book to use the term nonverbal communication in its title in 1956 with Nonverbal Communication: Notes on the Visual Perception of Human Relations. The decades of the 1960's and 1970's witnessed important contributions from many scholars, including Mehrabian and Rosenthal, Sommer and Trager. In 1969 Ekman and Friesen presented an important theoretical framework for the origins, usage and coding of nonverbal behavior. The 1970's began with a journalist's account of nonverbal study (Fasi. with Body Language) and there soon followed a steady stream of books and magazine articles that attempted to make nonverbal findings understandable for a popular audience (Knapp, pp. iii-iv). is unlikely that Georgi Lozanov and his staff at the Institute of Suggestology in It Sofia were influenced by Western (and, in particular, American) research in the area of nonverbal communication. However, it is interesting to note that, in the 1960's and early 1970's, Suggestology and Suggestopedia incorporated elements of this "modern" area of research. In his pronouncements on Suggestology and Suggestopedia, Lozanov has insisted, from the beginning, that double-planeness is an important factor in therapy as well as in education. Verbal and nonverbal cues should be harmonized. The teacher's (or therapist's) body language and tone(s) of voice are instrumental in the educational (or therapeutic) process as is the physical and social environment. The teacher (or therapist) should have the confidence and the artistic 4 presentation skills of the trained actor. Attention should be paid tc classroom design (wall colors, seating arrangements, windows, etc.) as it has a definite influence on student participation, performance and learning in the classroom. (So, too, does the "social environment" consisting of the staff of the educational institution). According to Mark Knapp in Essentials of Nonverbal Communication (pp. 4-11; p. 21), the theoretical writings and research on nonverbal communication can be divided into the following seven areas: 1) kinesics or body motion; 2) physical characteristics (including physique or body shape, general attractiveness, clothing);6 3) touching behavior or haptics (tactile communication is probably the most basic or primitive - as well as the most effective 4) paralanguage form of communication); 7 (including voice qualities and vocalizations); 5) proxemics (the study of the use and perception of social and personal space); 6) artifacts (including the use of objects such as jewelry and cosmetics and other decorations that may serve as nonverbal stimuli); 7) the environment or environmental factors within which the interaction occurs. An eighth category, oculesics, or the study of messages sent by the eyes, is another important area for nonverbal communication. The categories which have a bearing on Lozanov's Suggestopedia are: (1), (4), (5) and (7), viz. kinesics, paralanguage, proxemics and the environment, as well as (8) oculesics. Appropriate aspects of these categories are discussed below. Kinesics Kinesics is communication that occurs via body movement. Body motion, or kinesic behavior, typically includes gestures, posture, movements of the head and body, facial expressions (e.g., smiles), eye behavior (including direction and length of gaze). In 1969 Ekman and Friesen developed a system for classifying nonverbal behavioral 5 acts.8 These categories include emblems, illustrators, affect displays, regulators and adaptors. Emblems. i ) These are stylized nonverbal acts or signs that have a direct or or two specific verbal translation or dictionary definition, usually consisting of a word or a phrase. They are usually produced with the hands but they may also be produced by the face. Emblems are frequently used when verbal channels are blocked (or fail). There is general agreement among members of a culture or subculture on the verbal translation" of these signals. (The gestures used to represent "A-OK" or "Peace" [also known as the victory] sign are examples of emblems for a large part of our culture). Culture-specific emblems appear to be learned very much the way language vocabulary is learned and they are usually performed with awareness and with an intent to communicate a specifiable message. Because they originate within cultures, emblems may cause particular difficulties for the international traveler (and the foreign language student). The meaning the traveler has for a gesture may not be shared by the citizens of the host country. If one is to travel successfully and/or be truly competent in communication in a foreign language, one needs to learn the gestures (especially emblems) of the foreign country or culture.9 Generally speaking, however, as Neill points out (p. 69), emblems are not much used in teaching. Nevertheless, they may pose a problem in language classes, for example, those classes where English is being taught as a second language to students of various cultures whose emblematic gestures are very different from those used by the anglophone instructor (Neill, p. 134). Illustrators i i) These are nonverbal acts or signs that are intimately linked . to spoken discourse and serve to illustrate (or amplify on) what is being said verbally. Illustrators are done primarily with the hands but they can also be done with the head, 6 the face and the total body. Patterns of illustration appear to be learned in the family which, in turn, reflects the larger social or cultural pattern. (Mediterranean peoples, for example, use more illustrative gestures than do Anglo-Saxons). In all, six major types of illustrators have been identified: deictic movements (or pointers), pictographs, ideographs, spatial movements, kinetographs and batons. The pointer simply points to some present object in the sense of "I want that one." The pictograph draws a picture of the referent in the air. (According to Neill [p. 69], pantomiming, which is frequently used in the classroom, is allied to pictographs; it involves demonstrating an action with a standardized imaginary object). The spatials show size or depict a spatial relationship. The kinetographs recreate some bodily action. The batons are movements which accentuate or punctuate; they beat out the tempo of the verbal statement (e.g., "I really [gesture] mean it [gesturer). 10 Ideographs trace the flow of an idea. They tend to be rolling or flowing movements that help the receiver see the connection between ideas or the direction in which a line of thought is moving. Many factors can alter the frequency with which illustrators are displayed. More illustrators are used, for example, in face-to-face communication than over an intercom; more illustrators are used in "difficult" communication situations when words fail or when the potential receiver is unable to comprehend the intended message. Individuals who are excited and enthusiastic display more illustrators than do those who are not. Effective teachers who are involved with their ideas and who play a theatrical role in the classroom use a great many illustrative gestures ( Neill, p. 153). iii) Affect Displays. These are nonverbal signs or sign patterns that display affective or emotional states. The face is the primary source of affect (i.e., it is considered the primary site for communication of emotional states); however, the body can also be read for global judgments of emotion. Affect displays can repeat, 7 augment, contradict, or be unrelated to verbal affective statements. Affect displays are often not intended to communicate (i.e., they are involuntary) but they can be intentional. Certain display rules - cultural and professional - are learned regarding facial expressions, although these rules are not always present at a conscious level of awareness when we use them. Another important aspect of our facial expressions is that we do not always portray "pure" or single emotional states in which, for example, all the parts of our face show one given emotion. Instead, the face conveys multiple emotions, which are called "affect blends." An individual can also display "partials" - expressions in which only one portion of the face is activated. Our face also conveys what have been called "micromomentary facial expressions" or "micro-facials" (Knapp, p. 166). It is thought that these micromomentary expressions (which can be observed on slow motion film) reveal actual emotional states but are condensed in time because of repressive processes. Although the face is capable of making hundreds of distinct movements and communicating many emotional states, those that have been uncovered by virtually every researcher since 1940 (and which are called primary affect displays) are: fear, surprise, anger, disgust, happiness, sadness and interest. In addition to information about specific emotions, people also seem to judge facial expressions primarily along the following dimensions: pleasant/unpleasant; active/passive; and intense/controlled. The face is a multimessage system which can communicate information regarding one's emotional state(s) and personality as well as interest and responsiveness during interaction It is a particularly important means of communication in the classroom. One of the most powerful (and most positive) cues is the smile on the face. A smile may temper a message that may otherwise be interpreted as extremely negative. A smile is one of the primary ways by which affiliativeness is communicated 1(1