浅谈非言语交际及其在交际中的影响(9)

5.2.2Use of eyes
    “Eyes are windows of the soul.” Eyes, an important part on our faces, can convey the subtlest emotion. Eye contact plays an important role in the communication between teachers and students. A good teacher always knows how to use eye contact. Teachers often have a face to face communication with the students, so eye contact can be described in the following kinds: seriousness, attention, warmth, and negative eye expression.
5.2.3Facial expression
    A smile gives positive feedback and impacts the affective domain by communicating pleasure, trust, friendliness, interest, excitement, or surprise; a deadpan expression communicates distrust, low energy, and disinterest. Friendly and sincere smile of teachers can make the communication relax which can remove the barrier of students caused by nervousness and shyness. At the same time smile can show the confidence of the teachers as well as enhance the reliance of students to the teachers. When the teacher is listening to the reply of students, the signals sent by the smile are “I’m listening to you carefully”, “what you said are wonderful” etc. Sometimes it can help to encourage students to express their ideas freely. According to my experience, foreign teachers are good at using facial expression to attract students. Take my oral teacher, a Canadian, for example. He is a lovely old man with rich emotions and has some techniques to express himself naturally. His rich facial expressions make us absorb his lessons and never have opportunity to distract.
5.2.4To catch the cooperative information in time 
    The situation must go well if the student is willing to cooperate with the teacher. The teacher can try to give him some practical advice. Therefore, in the mutual communication, the teacher should concentrate on observing the student’s body language and catch the right information immediately.
    If the student is sitting; we can observe his sitting posture. Sitting forward and looking into the teacher enthusiastically are the signals for cooperation. Some researchers show that if there are ten people at meeting, five of them sitting with crossed legs, the others touching the faces with hands; sitting with the legs crossed indicates nervousness and guardedness. So normally the latter five are more willing to cooperate with the meeting organizer. Hence, if a student sits toward the teacher, it shows his cooperative readiness. Especially when talking about an interesting topic, the students would move nearer and nearer to the teacher and talk in loud voice at the same time. It is also found that if the student doesn’t give you any definite verbal promise, you should observe some of his petty actions: loose wrist, no fist; palm spreading on the table; taking away the barriers on the table; hand supporting the chin. The above actions indicate that your work has achieved a positive effect, you should further your communication with the student. But the student’s body gestures are not dependable. Whether their verbal languages accord with the body languages; individual body languages accord with the whole should be considered. The messages conveyed by body languages can be different in different places, people, time and cultural background. Some are purely individual habits. Due to the traditional relationship between teacher and student, the students are not likely to take some obvious negative actions.