Middle School English Language Teachers’ Kinesics and Gender Differences: A Multimodal Approach
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Date
2015-09-13
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Mouloud Mammeri University of Tizi-Ouzou
Abstract
This dissertation is concerned with the analysis of the kinesics or body language of five
English language teachers teaching in three middle schools; Colonel Lotfi, Frères Kerkache
and Babouche Said. It examines whether the kinesic behaviour of these teachers; that is,
gestures, facial expressions, gaze, head motion and body posture improves and assists
teaching and facilitates their pupils’ target language learning. It also examines whether there
are gender differences with respect to the use of body language in the middle school
classroom. The study is based on Mixed Methods Research. It combines the Social Semiotic
Multimodal Approach alongside a kinesic framework to analyze teachers’ body movements
obtained in fifteen filmed videos, and an interview conducted with four of the participant
teachers: two females and two males to see teachers’ perception of their kinesic behaviour in
the classroom, with a questionnaire administered to one-hundred middle school pupils to sort
out their perception of their teachers’ kinesics. The results obtained in the investigation reveal
that the participant teachers use body language in the middle school classes intentionally and
instructively. Their body movements facilitate pupils’ understanding of the teaching points,
enhance their concentration in the classroom, foster their motivation to learn English,
encourage them to interact and take part in the classroom, help them memorize information in
their long term memory, contribute to build positive relationship between teachers and their
pupils, organize teachers’ speech and ideas and help them overcome some lexical
shortcomings and help to replace some explanations in the native language. The study also
shows that female English language teachers use gestures more than male teachers in the
middle school classes. The conclusion to be drawn from these findings is that teachers use
their kinesic behaviour as a semiotic resource to realize three main purposes: cognitive,
organizational and affective. The kinesics of English language teachers is a salient factor that
can help improve both the teaching practice and the learning process in Algerian middle
school classroom where English is taught and learned as a foreign Language.
Description
120p.:ill;30cm.(+cd)
Keywords
Citation
Applied Linguistics and Social Semiotics