The Structure of Teacher’s Nonverbal Communication in a Classroom

ŠVAŘÍČEK, Roman. The Structure of Teacher’s Nonverbal Communication in a Classroom. In Lecture at Department of Education, Aarhus University, Copenhagen. 2012.

Basic information

• Original name: The Structure of Teacher’s Nonverbal Communication in a Classroom
• Name in Czech: The Structure of Teacher’s Nonverbal Communication in a Classroom
• Authors: ŠVAŘÍČEK, Roman.
• Edition: Lecture at Department of Education, Aarhus University, Copenhagen. 2012.

Other information

• Original language: English
• Type of outcome: Requested lectures
• Field of Study: 50300 5.3 Education
• Country of publisher: Denmark
• Confidentiality degree: is not subject to a state or trade secret
• WWW: Abstract at DPU
• Organization unit: Faculty of Arts
• Tags: International impact

Abstract

A teaching dialogue and interaction in a classroom have been viewed as phenomena organized as the IRF three-part sequence (initiation, response, feedback) for many years now. Although researches unanimously confirm the IRF as the basic pattern of teaching communication, out of the whole stream of communication it is only verbal communication that is described by the IRF pattern concept. In my lecture, I will make an attempt to amend the traditional and unquestioned limited view by looking at the progress of nonverbal communication and focusing on its possible functions in the teaching process. The lecture capitalizes on an ethnographic research of communication in a classroom and it primarily analyses a teacher’s movement around the classroom and his/her body language. It describes both individual and objectified gesture components (Wulf, 2010). Primarily, it focuses on the structural effect that a teacher’s nonverbal communication has upon the whole teaching process. This is based on my assumption that there is a universal pattern of a teacher’s phasing of his/her teaching, where the verbal and nonverbal components are closely connected.