Exploring Teachers’ Use of Body Language and their Perspectives about its Role in Students’ Listening Comprehension

Abstract

Teaching English in middle school is no easy feat, especially for beginners. EFL teachers use a variety of strategies to pique their students' curiosity and foster their language learning, particularly in the realm of listening. Unfortunately, the complexities of the English language can make it difficult for students to comprehend the intended listening message. Accordingly, implementing body language as a teaching strategy and a type of communication to a considerable extent may have an effective role in developing students’ listening comprehension. The present research is an exploratory study relying on a qualitative approach that aims at exploring EFL teachers’ use of body language and their perspectives about its role in students’ listening comprehension. It is divided into two main chapters; the first is devoted to the theoretical part of the present research, and the second is practical, including research methodology, data analysis, discussion, limitations, and recommendations. This study was conducted using two data gathering tools that were addressed to first-year EFL teachers at Haffian Taher Ben Ali middle school "Hammamet" for the sake of answering our research questions. The first data gathering tool was a structured observation to observe teachers’ use of body language cues. The second was a structured interview to highlight the teachers’ perspectives about the role of their body language in students’ listening comprehension. The findings revealed that EFL teachers incorporate body language excessively in the classroom and most of the time appropriately. Further, it plays a crucial role in enhancing students' listening comprehension. Finally, a number of proposed recommendations about the appropriate use of body language were provided to achieve better learning outcomes.