After numerous disasters with making videos, PB class (novice low-to-mid ten-, eleven-, and twelve-year-olds managed to participate without fighting in what MIGHT be considered the most horrific STG video I've produced. The level of teacher talk in the explanation was exponentially more than I expected, caused partially by my desire to prevent explosions from this active class, whose hyper movement added irony to the exercise. (A bloopers video might be produced later). James' humorous statments that I was spitting on him while talking were, at that point, the least of my worries.
I appreciated their questions and efforts to understand the explanation. Initially, they were completely baffled by the instructions, as evidenced by their faces. NO HANDS? WHY? While I wanted them to understand the explanation, I was comfortable with them being slightly nonplussed by lack of understanding; it added to the need for plain COMMUNICATION with each other without agenda. I should have comprehension checked a bit more, but this class is usually adept at scaffolding each other (sometimes a bit violently) and constructing meaning amongst themselves (sometimes ludicrously) if need be.
The group standing in front of the camera, I found later, saved themselves the trouble of carrying on a detailed conversation initially by reciting handphone numbers for the first few minutes; however, they eventually settled into a discussion of their favorite game. I enjoyed watching them move back and forth to prevent their hands from popping out of their pockets. The amount of hopping and Gangnam Style dancing in the background highlighted what I expected to find: that middle schoolers at the end of a long school week, regardless of culture, need their hands and bodies for talking and interacting. They resorted to random movements and shuffling, some using their heads to illustrate a point during a discussion of Minecraft, as my student Andy later pointed out.
PB Class' reactions to my questions about emotion were as I expected: some enjoyed the exercise, while others felt "stuffy" and frustrated. Interestingly enough, the quieter members of the class found the exercise "fun" or enjoyable. They hadn't realized how much they used their hands. It caused "many problems" for some, while others, like James, felt "very bored." Video games provided a good format for this exercise because students were unable to fully use action words in English without moving their hands and bodies as well. Students were adamant about the fact that in Korean, people use their hands to talk as much as in another culture.
Unfortunately, I underused my time limits and wasn't able to use myself as an example to contrast English speakers' and Korean speakers' use of body language, or to discuss how we can use our body language to scaffold ours and others' communication or make our output more comprehensible. Now that my students are aware of their body language in communication, I hope to remind them of it in order to highlight their own abilities to communicate across cultural problems.
ICC PB Class: Nonverbal Communication
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