Non-Verbal Communication:
The Key to Unlocking Second Language Acquisition


As a language teacher, and a mother raising my children in a foreign country, and in a foreign language, my number one goal for both my students and my children is for them to succeed at communicating in a second language. However, it has been frustrating to see time and time again that many first attempts fail miserably. Was it me? Was I not teaching effectively? Did my students just not have the “knack” for speaking in English? When reviewing why the attempts failed I couldn’t detect the problem because, in most cases, they got all of the words right. Verbs had been conjugated adequately, tenses respected, vocabulary correctly applied. But the listener always answered with a look of complete misunderstanding, that horrible “Excuse me?” we get when we attempt to communicate that perfect sentence, one that we had already formulated in our heads before the moment, revised and corrected three times to make sure it was perfect, only to find that we may as well have been speaking in Martian. After years of analyzing these frustrated attempts, the only flaw I could find was that the language just didn’t seem natural. There were no “ums” or “ahs”, no gesticulating hands dancing around thoughtlessly in the air, no wrinkled foreheads or laughing eyes. The big problem was that on first attempts at speaking a foreign language, we are so wrought with attention given to subject-verb agreement and grammatical perfection that the rest of the body seems to shut down to power all of the energy into words. When I read an article that insisted that as much as 40%, and in some instances up to 90%, of communication is non-verbal, I decided it was something I should give my attention to.
But how to teach non-verbal communication in a second language classroom? Wasn’t our time supposed to be filled with vocabulary lists, irregular verbs, spelling tests. It was all about words. I found that when I stopped giving class in English and let my Spanish students have a heated classroom debate in their own language, my classroom was suddenly noisier, rowdier, children leaning back in their chairs, others lifting to their knees with an urgency to be heard, arms flailing in disgust when disagreeing, spontaneous applause given when supportive. How could I “teach” them to do this in English, if they weren’t even aware of what they were doing?
My first task was to do just that, show them what they were “doing.” Having Spanish children as subjects made my job easier, as they were non-verbal communication experts by right of birth. I started playing around, asking them to tell me the meaning of many different gestures that I had “learned” over the years as a foreigner in Spain, that all Spanish people understood: how to comment on the fact that a room is really crowded, how to express that one is “broke”, and doesn’t have any money, how to describe that somebody is really thin, even how to let my students know that I am getting angry and that they are walking on thin ice. All of these concepts could be understood unanimously amongst my students with a simple movement of the hand. But they were baffled when I told them that if they made these signs in California, nobody would know what they were talking about. It was a first realization of their own cultural code.
The next step was to notice different cultural codes in the world around them. I had always been avid on using DVDs in the classroom, studying dialogues, memorizing dialogues, acting out scenes. But now we started watching DVDs, but with no sound. What do you think is happening? How are the actors using their bodies to communicate? My students started becoming obsessed with corporal language, inventing new signs for new terms, analyzing one another during classroom discussions. Our show-and-tell activities and classroom presentations were much more professional now that the children really understood the importance of incorporating a correct body language to support their message.
From here we opened up the topic to include the importance of symbols within a culture. I quickly organized a PowerPoint presentation of 100 symbols that I knew all of my students would recognize on the spot. And not only could they recognize the symbols, but they were all aware of the deeper meaning rooted to the symbol. The symbol of Mercedes Benz, someone who is rich and powerful, the symbol of Nike, a top athlete. Even symbols like the Red Cross, a Stop sign or a No Smoking sign were instantly recognized as informative. We even took it a step further and began to analyse how symbolism has changed in history, from medieval shields to modern day marketing, changes in fashion as a form of communication, the symbolism behind tribal tattoos or dances, the use of symbols in ceremonies like weddings, funerals, religious celebrations. The possibilities seemed to be endless, and spanned around the globe.
What I liked most about this project on non-verbal communication was what the students ended up bringing to the class themselves. As they began to focus on these aspects of their own culture, they went out into the world around them with a different perspective, one that gave them great insights into a new culture before they even had to utter a word. One student learned the Hakka dance from a neighbour from New Zealand, and told us its meaning. A boy born in Spain to Chinese parents suddenly became interested in the folk tales his grandfather had always told him, and the symbolism involved. It seemed as if every weekend were another opportunity to go out into the world and find the deeper meaning behind the symbols in their paths. Yes, they still complained about the spelling tests and grammar exercises, and I still insisted that they at least try to conjugate their verbs correctly, but I found that with the knowledge of a deeper non-verbal communication that my students were not only developing another language, but were beginning to develop another identity, another sub-culture to add to their own native culture. Not only were they more enthused to learn English, but they were becoming passionate about the different English-speaking cultures themselves, unlocking the secrets to the aspects hidden between the words. In this way I realized that not only should I be responsible for teaching them how to be good speakers, but how to be good communicators.