• to introduce information concerning different channels of nonverbal communication
• to explain the importance of nonverbal communication
• to make students aware of the differences between nonverbal codes in different cultures
• to familiarize students with some possible ways of using nonverbal communication

• students can use nonverbal communication effectively
• students are able to define basic channels of nonverbal communication
• students can give examples of some differences in using nonverbal communication by the representatives of different cultures
• students are able to control their nonverbal behaviour effectively
• students can compare and contrast their own nonverbal patterns of behaviour with these of the others

MS Teams (general meeting channel and break out rooms), Google Slides, Padlet, Mentimeter, LearningApps

1. At STEP 1 students are asked to take a selfie and at STEP 5 students should have their cameras on. This can be problematic as some students may not feel comfortable with that. At STEP 1 the teacher can offer an alternative to a selfie: a student can find an appropriate image on the Internet that will reveal the same feature. At STEP 5 a choice is offered to the students: they perform slightly different tasks depending on their having the cameras on or off.
2. Since the subject of the class refers to nonverbal communication, all gestures and facial expressions of emotions will be of particular importance during the class. They will be presented in the pictures as well as performed by the teacher and the participants of the class. However, it must not be forgotten that some students might have limited eyesight abilities, so the pictures and performances should be followed by verbal description. This will not spoil the effect of the exercises and can be helpful to some class participants.

The studies of nonverbal communication began in the United States in the1940s and 1950s, when scholars “saw nonverbal communication and culture as patterned, regular, and predictable” (John R. Baldwin, Robin R. Means Coleman, Alberto González, and Suchitra Shenoy-Packer, Intercultural Communication for Everyday Life, Wiley Blacwell 2014). There are many different channels of nonverbal communication:

Kinesics – describes body movement (e.g. gestures, stance, gait, posture, and facial expressions of emotion);

Haptics – deals with the study of touch and defines the touching behaviour;

Proxemics – which defines how a culture uses space;

Territoriality – studies the way in which people mark “their” territory;

Oculesics – identifies the eye behaviour acceptable in a certain culture;

Paralinguistics – includes elements that support verbal communication such as rate of speech, volume, intonation, pronunciation, tone of voice, and other vocalizations such as sighs, laughter, grunts etc.

Nonverbal communication exists in relation to verbal communication, and it serves many purposes: it helps to express emotions and sometimes to reduce tension, it shows attitudes towards others, and reveals one’s identity or mood. Whenever there is a contradiction between the message conveyed by verbal and nonverbal codes, the recipient will tend to rely more on body language (58%) and vocalization (38%) than on verbal language (only 7%).

In each culture there are some gestures with fixed meanings and explicit language translations, which are called emblems. The same gestures might have different meanings in different cultures – it is important to be aware of the differences so as not to make a cross-cultural mistake.

KINESICS, HAPTICS, PROXEMICS, TERRITORIALITY, OCULESICS, PARALINGUISTICS, MEHRABIAN’S RULE, EMBLEM

STEP I
Warm-up (exercise described in the toolkit, GROUP INTEGRITY, exercise 1)

1. Each student takes a selfie. The selfie (facial expression, gestures, body movements) should reveal the main feature of the student’s character. 
2. The selfies are put on a Padlet wall. Each selfie should be captioned (student’s name, possibly name + surname). All the students work at the same time, and the selfies are put on the wall simultaneously.
3. Each student is asked to interpret his/her mate’s selfie. The selfie’s owner assesses/evaluates the interpretation.The teacher can also take part in this exercise – he/she may present the selfie first and ask the class for interpretation. This can make the task more comprehensible to the students.
4. The exercise is followed by a short discussion. The students try to answer the following questions:

• Is it easy to interpret a nonverbal message?
• What kind of information is easy to convey in a nonverbal manner?
• What kind of information is difficult/impossible to convey in a nonverbal manner?
• Why do we need nonverbal communication?

STEP II
1. The students are divided into six groups (MS Teams, breakout rooms option). Each group is to describe a different channel of nonverbal communication. The students are given some basic reading materials, but they can also do the Internet research on their own. Each group should be ready to present the results in front of the class using a template prepared by the teacher (see Additional materials 1. Channels of communication templates).

• • Possible sources/suggested reading material:

2. The templates are placed on Google Slides – each group gets access to its slide and completes the required information. The teacher monitors the progress – using the Grid View option, he/she sees a preview of all the slides, so he/she can support the groups if needed or join the early-finishers to ask additional questions.

3. When all the templates are completed, each group presents the result to the class. After each presentation the audience is encouraged to ask questions concerning a given channel of communication. If the students have no questions, the teacher may ask some questions on his/her own.

STEP III
Group discussion: the students are asked how important they think nonverbal communication is. The teacher presents the Mehrabian’s rule and explains in which situation it can be applied. Volunteers are asked to create and say a sentence that is accompanied by nonverbal behaviour which contradicts the verbal meaning. The rest of the class decides what was more convincing: the verbal language or the voice and the body language (Mentimeter can be used for voting or students can simply express their opinions freely).

If there are no volunteers, the teacher can present some examples on his/her own.

STEP IV

1. The teacher introduces the term ‘emblem’ and explains what it means. He/she points out to the differences between the meanings of emblems in different cultures.
2. The teacher shows some gestures that have different meanings in different countries. The Power Point presentation can be used here (see Additional materials 2. Emblems) or the teacher can use his/her own hands to present the gestures.

STEP V

1. The students are given information about gestures in Japan (See Additional materials 3. Gestures in Japan).
2. They are given time to read it carefully; they work individually at this stage.
3. The teacher asks the willing students to turn their cameras on. One or more of the students who decide to turn their cameras on is/are given the following task:

• the teacher describes a gesture from the text they have read, and the students are supposed to use their fingers to imitate it in front of their cameras;
• the teacher verifies the correctness of the gesture.

Other students, who have not decided to turn their cameras on, are asked to give the meaning of this gesture in Japanese culture.

STEP VI
Sum-up (exercise described in the toolkit, CONSOLIDATING ACTIVITIES, exercise 4).

The students are asked to do the online quiz: matching the basic terms concerning the nonverbal communication with their meanings should help them to memorize those terms.

Link to the quiz: https://learningapps.org/watch?v=pe7bwuh9k22

STEP VII

1. The teacher prepares a Padlet wall and asks students to take (or find on the Internet) the pictures presenting the most common gestures typical of their own culture. The students are asked not to present each gesture more than once.
2. The students work individually in an asynchronous mode, uploading pictures to the Padlet.
3. In the beginning of the next class, the teachers and the students go to the Padlet wall for a moment to check if all the gestures are known to everybody, and to verify their meaning and possible usage.