I’d been teaching Saudi students for almost a YEAR when I finally figured out that they’d been trying to tell me something crucial with a gesture. For a year, I completely missed my students’ pleas for more time to think. It looked like I was refusing to give them time to formulate their answers or ask what they wanted to ask.
Why? I focused entirely on their faces to look for clues about their unspoken needs.
This meant I hadn’t noticed the gesture they used. With your palm up, draw all your fingers and thumb together, pointed up. Now bop your hand lightly up and down. That means “wait.” So simple, right? And once I was aware of it, I noticed it constantly. They used it all the time.
Your classroom is full of unspoken communication you’re probably missing
After my experiences while teaching in South Korea, you’d think I’d have been more conscious of the unspoken communication happening around me. But who knows how much I missed? I taught students from dozens of countries, and I’m sure they were using gestures that were largely invisible to me.
We know not to just ask, “Do you understand?” because we aren’t likely to get an accurate answer. We know to watch their faces, to recognize confusion. But what if you have students from cultures who don’t use facial expressions to communicate much? What about the students from cultures that use completely different gestures from ours?
Using their gestures puts students at ease
While shopping in a street market in South Korea, I felt like an intrusive presence. So many of the vendors shooed me away. Later I learned that the Korean gesture for “come here” is very similar to the gesture we use in the United States for “go away.” Yeah, they weren’t trying to get rid of me, they were trying to pull me in closer!
Using this gesture with my Korean students in Oklahoma helped put them at ease. I could invite them to come closer without calling attention to their desire for more personal one-on-one attention. (I taught in a tiny, packed classroom and could not physically get close to students unless they were in the front row.)
Thanks to my time in Korea, I quickly recognized the signal a Japanese student gave me. She wanted to warn me about an angry classmate. It’s not a gesture used in the USA, but I remembered my Korean students also using it. I immediately grasped the warning. If I hadn’t understood the gesture, I wouldn’t have known to take steps to de-escalate the situation.
But here’s the thing: innocent gestures could cause serious problems
Knowing that a Chinese student is touching his nose to refer to himself the same way we do when we touch our chest is one thing. But what about when a perfectly innocent gesture in one culture is obscene to the extreme in another?
The theme of body language and gestures is one of my favorites for class discussions. This is in part because it can ward off misunderstandings that might otherwise cause outrage.
For example, when my Chinese student enthusiastically gave the thumbs up gesture to his partner from Iran, he had no idea that he was being extremely insulting.
I tended to use that gesture a lot myself. I had to physically HOLD my thumbs whenever I had Iranians in my classroom to prevent myself from flipping them off.
By the way, don’t cross your fingers to wish luck when you have Vietnamese students in your class. It’s a gesture meaning female genitalia.
Start paying attention
Being aware of gestures and body language used by different cultures helps you understand your students and even communicate with them. You’d be surprised at how much this can put them at ease. They may not even make the connection and know why they feel so comfortable with you, but you’ll impart a sense of the familiar. Plus, it’s certainly worth knowing that your Brazilian student just had an Ah-Ha moment when she smacked her forehead with her fist in the Brazilian “It’s so obvious!” gesture.
The Bottom Line
So keep your eyes open, and don’t be afraid to ASK if you think you spot a gesture. You’re missing more than you think if you’re only looking at their faces.
That’s it from me. See you in the next post!
