A Study of Teacher Gesture and Speech in the Efl Classroom Context

A STUDY OF TEACHER GESTURE AND SPEECH IN THE EFL CLASSROOM CONTEXT

CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

1. Background

Nonverbal communication has the essential role in the English foreign language classroom especially in assisting students’ language communicative competence. In this case, nonverbal communication becomes a part of how teacher communicate verbally to the students. It also known as a part of interaction in the classroom in which affect students achievement. It is because nonverbal communication becomes the way of the teachers to attract students willingness to learn language skill. According to ( ) that yet little attention has been given teacher practical teaching techniques that will help English language teachers incorporate this essential element into their classrooms.

Many researchers show that the relationship between teachers and students can be improved if teachers make effective use of nonverbal communication. Besides, students‟ cognitive ability and efficiency in learning will be promoted (Cooper, 1988). When we talk about means of communication, language perhaps is the first which occurs to us. Here, language is referred to as a sign of a combination of sound and meaning. The general trend of communication studies has largely been focused on language.

 But in fact, communicative means does not just involve verbal channel, it also encompasses varieties of nonverbal forms. In the nonverbal forms, teachers attempt to use their body language, gesture, and facial expression in order to support their speech. Then, it can be stated that teachers who have a good nonverbal communication will directly engage students interest in learning English. English which is known as the international language used in the entire the world especially in Indonesia as a foreign language which categorized as the medium of instruction in the classroom.

Then, to develop their language skill, teachers should creatively interact with the students in a good verbal and nonverbal communication. Because, both dimensions of communication are importance to be applied during the learning process. Nonverbal, as the term suggests, does not involve any use of words or speech. Birdwhistell (1961) holds that information carried by verbal forms during an interaction accounts for no more than 30% while the rest is all sent through nonverbal means.

The importance of nonverbal communication can also be seen in the division of communicative language ability into language competence and strategic competence in teaching English, among which strategic competence refers to mastery of nonverbal communication in term of body language notably gesture. Samovar, L., et al (1981) positively express their view that most authorities believe that in a normal two-person conversion, the verbal rents carry less than 35% of the total social meaning of the situation and that more than 65% is carried on the nonverbal band.

 It has been clear that nonverbal communication plays a vital role as well as the oral counterparts. In this case, nonverbal communication concerning on the teacher’s gesture that occur in the EFL classroom context. When teachers communicate the language to the students, the begin to produce speech and at the same time, they act a certain gesture in order to make students understand on what teachers said. Furthermore, gesture and speech are two major aspects that cannot be separated in the process of transferring insights to the students.

In this case, university students sometimes did not understand on what teacher has been said in which teacher frequently used English as a medium instruction, then they felt anxious to ask about a clear explanation to the teacher. Then, by seeing the phenomena, it is interested to conduct a research on teacher gesture and speech especially in the EFL classroom context that occur in the Cokroaminoto University. By concerning on the teacher’s gesture and speech, hopefully, this research can be encountered in improving the quality of teaching

B. Research Question

1. What are the types of teacher’s gesture that commonly occur in the EFL classroom?

2. What are the teacher’s reason in performing gesture in the EFL classroom?

2. How do the teacher’s gesture influence students motivation in learning English?

1. The Objective of the Research

In relation of the research questions above, the objectives of this research are:

1. To find out the types of teacher’s gesture that commonly occur in the EFL classroom.

2. To find out the teacher’s reason in performing gesture in the EFL classroom.

3. To find out the teacher’s gesture influence students motivation in learning English.

1. Significance of the research

The result of the study will be expected to give contribution to theoretical and practical use.

1. Theoretically:

This research will be expected to be significant information and a reference for the teacher or tutor of English about kinds of teachers’ humor. Several types of humors introduced in this research are proposed by Melissa Bekelja Wanzer and Frymier (1999) namely appropriate and inappropriate humor and to determine whether or not the teacher create the classroom environment into positive in reference to Charlotte Danielson (Danielson, 2013). Exploiting humor to its full potential offers a new direction in improving English teaching and learning. This research will also contribute as useful information or reliable reference and expand further research on the benefits of humor in EFL teaching.

1. Practically:

The finding of this research will be expected to broaden the knowledge of teacher and educational practitioners about using humor in the classroom. Practically, it will provide the teacher at MEC English course to develop strategies by involving humor in teaching English.

1. The Scope of the Research

To avoid the research broadening, the researcher limits this research. The scopes of this research are covered or limited to some issue as follows:

1. By discipline, this research is under the discipline of sociolinguistics and applied linguistics which is limited to use of humor by the teacher in EFL classroom.
2. By content, this research focuses on types of humor which are used by the teacher and the impact of humor are proposed by Melissa Bekelja Wanzer and Frymier (1999), namely appropriate and inappropriate humor in spoken form that produced by the teacher in EFL classroom. In this case, The researcher focuses in appropriate humor to make sure that it will contribute to the positive environment.  Israil (2017) in her thesis said, appropriate humor is illuminates a sense of positive humor because positive humor incorporates an attitude or perspective that reduce tension in the classroom. It is categorized into four types: related humor. Unrelated humor, self-disparaging humor, and unplanned humor. Another aspect of this research concerns about creating positive language learning classroom. The researcher will use Danielson Framework (Danielson, 2013) as the indicator to determine whether or not EFL teacher’s humor fulfill the criteria of creating positive classroom environment and to scrutinize the patterns of EFL teacher’s humor based on the framework.
3. By activity, this research will be making observation, interview and video recording to collect the data which are relevant in this research. This research will be conducted at Makassar English Course (MEC) and will use technique of data analysis suggested by Miles and Huberman (1994) to analyze the data. The analysis includes three steps, namely: data condensation, data display, and conclusion drawing/verification.

CHAPTER II

REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE

        This chapter deals with previous related studies, pertinent ideas, and conceptual framework.