The impact of nonverbal communication on iranian young EFL learners’ attitudes and understanding of lexical items

Abstract

The present research sets at investigating the importance of nonverbal communication (NVC) in L2 teaching and learning. More specifically, it studies the effect of teaching gestures that can be perceived and do not come directly from physical language. Communication is a means of sharing ideas, feelings, and attitudes. It is separated into two parts; verbal and nonverbal. Verbal communication uses language, while nonverbal communication is behaviors that can be perceived indirectly from physical language. The participants of the study included 60 Iranian young learners of English selected from among a population of 100 EFL young learners at a private language institute. The participants were divided into two experimental and control groups based on random sampling. Both groups were instructed 15 lexical items. Experimental group was taught using NVC such as gesture and some pertinent pictures whereas control group was instructed using verbal communication (VC) and some relevant pictures for six sessions during a month. Then the participants in both groups were tested orally to check their amount of progress. The data were fed into the computer and were analyzed by SPSS using t-test. The results show significant differences between experimental and control groups displaying that experimental group outperformed control group. Also, a questionnaire was distributed among the participants based on Likert scale. The achieved data were analyzed by SPSS and the mean score showed high positive attitudes towards NVC in L2 teaching and learning

Keywords

• aquisição da segunda língua
• comunicação não-verbal
• inglês - ensino - estudantes estrangeiros