2) Use nonverbal communication equitably
Research shows that the majority of our communication is nonverbal (65-93%), which is comprised of facial expressions, gestures, eye contact, posture, and even the tone of voice. In the classroom, teachers and students–both consciously and unconsciously–send and receive nonverbal cues several hundred times a day.
The Key to Success with this Strategy
Monitor your nonverbal communication and interpret others’ nonverbal communication tentatively. Consider these questions:
- Do you unintentionally offer more encouragement and support to particular students in your classes? Do you provide positive nonverbal cues to high-achieving students more than to low-achieving students?
- When particular students ask questions are you quick to affirm that their questions are good through your facial expression, or do you nonverbally show your disapproval? Does your body language show irritation or disinterest in the students’ questions?
- When students share opinions or ideas, is there an unintentional pattern to how you respond to their input? What do your facial expression, body language, and tone of voice communicate?
- How do you interpret your students’ body language? Do you consider cultural differences or other factors that may be occurring in the students’ lives?
Our patterns of interaction with others are often unconscious, learned over time and embedded in our mind and behaviors without our overt knowledge. This strategy is about examining, monitoring, and intentionally adjusting how we respond nonverbally to students and how we interpret students’ nonverbal behaviors.
Using this strategy is culturally responsive because…
Equitable nonverbal communication:
Challenges us to examine and change our unconscious behaviors.
Shifting to intentional use of nonverbal communication helps to manage the potential disproportionate impact of our unconscious biases. Intentionally managing our nonverbal communication is also a practice of transparency – do my tone, stance, and facial expressions match what I hope is being received?
Challenges us to examine and change our unconscious (and conscious) expectations.
While we work on our own nonverbal communication, we can also reflect on how we interpret the nonverbal cues we receive from our students. Just like us, our students are not always aware of what they communicate with their facial expressions, tone of voice, posture and stance, etc. And, just like we use nonverbal communication without much thought or intention in most cases, we may also interpret it unconsciously or based on biases.
How do I Implement this Strategy?
1. Listen with Grace.
Listening communicates a sense of respect for and an interest in the student’s contributions. Use empathetic, attentive listening to build rapport with students.
- Give one’s full attention to the speaker and to what is being said (no multitasking)
- Use body language, facial expressions, and hand gestures to convey your attention
- Understand the feeling behind the words and be sensitive to the emotions being expressed
- Suspend judgment and listen with compassion
- Honor the speaker’s cultural way of communicating
(Hammond, p. 78)
2. Use eye contact with high- and low-achieving students equitably.
Monitor your use of eye contact. Are you using it equitably?
- “Harris Cooper, in his research on the connection between teacher expectations and student performance, found that teachers varied the amount of eye contact they made with their students, depending on how they perceived the ability of those students. Teachers appeared to create a ‘warmer socio-emotional atmosphere’ in their classroom for those students that they perceived as bright. A prime element of this atmosphere was that teachers were observed to lean toward brights and look them in the eyes more frequently than they did with students that they perceived to be slow.” (https://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/uploadedFiles/departments/clusteradmin/equity/ECP.pdf (Links to an external site.))
- “Make eye contact with all students to show respect. It can be surprisingly easy to avoid students that you don’t feel you connect with, so make it a priority to monitor your body language and facial expressions to stay positive towards everyone.” (https://www.schoology.com/blog/culturally-responsive-teaching-16-ways-integrate-it-your-classroom (Links to an external site.))
3. Be aware of cultural norms and interpretations of eye contact.
To be equitable in the classroom, the teacher needs to be sensitive to the cultural norms and interpretations of even such simple behaviors as making eye contact.
- The conventional pattern of eye contact among white native English speakers is to make eye contact while listening, but to avert the gaze while speaking. For some non-White groups, however, this pattern is reversed, keeping eye contact while speaking, and looking elsewhere when listening.
- Teachers must be careful not to misconstrue behaviors in students of differing races or ethnic groups. What teachers may interpret as inattentiveness or rudeness may simply be an alternative, culturally based pattern of eye contact.
4. Use proximity with high- and low-achieving students equitably.
Proxemics is space and how we use it. Be sure to circulate around student work areas equitably to be close to all students.
- “Ladson-Billing notes, ‘Although it has been suggested that teachers unconsciously favor those students perceived to be most like themselves in race, class, and values, culturally relevant teaching means consciously working to develop commonalities with all the students.’ Part of this consciousness should include teacher self-monitoring of their use of proximity, being certain not to positively gravitate to students like them for social contact and academic reinforcement and, for disciplinary reasons, not to negatively hover over students who may differ from them.”
- “Effective teachers, as Fred Jones puts it, ‘work the crowd.’ By doing so, they consistently shift their proximity to each of their students. While research shows numerous positive outcomes from the use of proximity, teachers often ‘underestimate the importance and effectiveness’ of this simple strategy that supports classroom management, student attention, lesson momentum, feedback on student performance, and relationship-building.”
(Ladson-Billings, 2009) (Links to an external site.)
5. Use body language, gestures, and expressions to convey a message that all students’ questions and opinions are important.
Nonverbal behavior can be the most immediate part of a teacher’s overall reward system, as well as one of the most subtly motivating or discouraging forces available to teachers in their interactions with students. Use nonverbal clues to validate students’ questions and opinions.
- Smile
- Nod head in affirmation
- Lean toward the student
- Turn toward students who are speaking to express interest