VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES
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LÊ THỊ THU HÀ

AN AMERICAN – VIETNAMESE
CROSS-CULTURAL STUDY OF TEACHERS’ USE OF
NONVERBAL CUES IN CLASS
(Nghiên cứu giao văn hoá về việc sử dụng các hiện tố phi ngôn từ trên lớp
của giáo viên Mỹ và Việt) M.A. MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS F
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FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES
***  ***

LÊ THỊ THU HÀ

AN AMERICAN – VIETNAMESE
CROSS-CULTURAL STUDY OF TEACHERS’ USE OF
NONVERBAL CUES IN CLASS

(Nghiên cứu giao văn hoá về việc sử dụng các hiện tố phi ngôn từ trên lớp
của giáo viên Mỹ và Việt)

M.A. MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

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Hanoi, 2014
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ORIGINALITY OF STUDY PROJECT REPORT
I certify my authority of the Study Project Report submitted entitled
An American-Vietnamese cross-cultural study of teachers’ use of nonverbal cues
in class
Nghiên cứu giao văn hóa về việc sử dụng các hiện tố phi ngôn từ trên lớp của giáo
viên Mỹ và Việt
In fulfillment of the requirements for the degree Master of Arts
15
th
July, 2014
Lê Thị Thu Hà


Vietnamese teachers of English when interacting with their Vietnamese students. The
areas under investigation include eye contact, hand gestures and facial expressions
which are most readily observable. The findings of the study briefly answer the
questions how often the American and Vietnamese teachers of English use these
nonverbal cues, in which specific situations, and their students‟ attitude to them. To
collect data for the study, survey questionnaires and video-recorded observations were
employed. Data from survey questionnaire serve as input for data analysis and the
other source just provides supplementing information to make sure whether data from
the survey are valid or not. Finally, implications for practical teaching are given.

iv

LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES
Table 1: Frequencies of using eye contact by American and Vietnamese teachers of
English 25
Table 2: Frequencies of using hand gestures by American and Vietnamese teachers of
English 31
Table 3: Frequencies of using facial expressions by American and Vietnamese teachers
of English 36
Figure 1. Ferrando’s definition of culture 5
Figure 2. Levine and Adelman’s definition of culture 5

5. Structure of the study 3
PART B: DEVELOPMENT 5
CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 5
1. 1. WHAT IS CULTURE? 5
1.2. WHAT IS COMMUNICATION? 6
1.2.1. Definition 6
1.2.2. Elements of communication 7
1.3. CROSS-CULTURAL COMMUNICATION 9
1.4. NONVERBAL COMMUNICATON 9
1.4.1. Definition 9
1.4.2. The importance of nonverbal communication 10
1.4.3. Functions of nonverbal communication 10
1.4.4. Classification of nonverbal communication 11
1.5. PREVIOUS RELATED STUDIES 12
a. In the world 12
b. In Vietnam 13
CHAPTER 2: NONVERBAL CUES 15
2.1. EYE CONTACT 15
2.1.1. Nature and importance of eye contact 15
vi

2.1.2. Classification 16
2.2. HAND GESTURES 16
2.2.1. Nature and importance of hand gestures 16
2.2.2. Classification 17
2.3. FACIAL EXPRESSIONS 19
2.3.1. Nature and importance of facial expressions 19
2.3.2. Classification 19
CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY 22
3.1. Participants 22

1. Rationale
It is undeniable that people express emotions and attitudes through nonverbal cues
more visually than through verbal cues in communication. However, nonverbal cues are
used differently in different cultures. Therefore, when people from different cultural
backgrounds come into contact, there always exists misunderstanding because of
misinterpretation of others‟ nonverbal cues in communication.
In class, teachers of English interact with their students in the ways thought as
“appropriate” in their culture. They teach, talk and explain to their students in their own
verbal and nonverbal ways. Cultural factors clearly affect both teachers and students. It
has been observed that the teachers might appear encouraging or discouraging, depending
much on whether the students take their teachers‟ nonverbal cues positively or negatively.
Therefore, the researcher conducts this study to see how and how often nonverbal cues
are used in classrooms at Vietnam Maritime University and Haiphong Private University
and how the performance of these cues is perceived by the students.
2. Objectives of the study and research questions
The objectives of the study are:
a. To study how selected nonverbal cues are used by American and Vietnamese
teachers of English in class
b. To compare the use of selected nonverbal cues by American and Vietnamese
teachers of English.
From those objectives, the following research questions are raised:
1- How often are selected nonverbal cues used by American and Vietnamese teachers
of English in class?
2 2- To what extent are the American teachers of English different from the Vietnamese
teachers of English in using the selected nonverbal cues in the particular situations in
class?
3- What are the students‟ attitudes to their teachers‟ nonverbal cues?

(1) The teacher is teaching/ giving instructions
(2) Students are making noise/ doing private things
(3) Students are raising questions
(4) Students are answering teacher’s questions
…
Observations are carried out with the minimum of disruption to class teaching and time
frames. This step aims at checking if there is any disagreement between teachers and
students‟ answers.
5. Structure of the study
The study is structured as follows
Part A: Introduction
1. Rationale
2. Objectives of the study and research questions
3. Scope of the study
4. Methodology
5. Structure of the study
4 Part B: Development
Chapter 1: Literature review
Chapter 2: Nonverbal cues
Chapter 3: Methodology
Chapter 4: Findings and discussions
Part C: Conclusion
1. Conclusions
2. Implications
3. Limitations of the study
4. Suggestions for further study


a social group as well as the ways it functions and reacts in given situations; this helps
distinguish one society or social group from another not only in terms of the availability
of those expressions and behaviours, but also in terms of their proportionality and
manifestability.”
1.2. WHAT IS COMMUNICATION?
1.2.1. Definition
Communication, culture, and the correlation between them have become an
interesting topic for many researchers. Communication, might be simply understood as a
tool to link people to people, countries to countries within demonstration of their own
cultures through process of sending and receiving messages. However, the definitions of
this concept should be clearly explained.
Saundra Hybels and Richard L.Weaver H (1992:5) state that: “Communication is
any process in which people share information, ideas, and feelings that involve not only
the spoken and written words but also body language, personal mannerism and style, the
surrounding and things that add meaning to a message”. This definition seems to cover
both “ the how” and “the what” of communication.
7 In terms of communication components, Nguyen Quang (2008:44) develops a
flowchart of communication that is well appreciated and widely cited.

Figure 3. Nguyen Quang’s flowchart of communication
1.2.2. Elements of communication
Communication is made up of various elements. According to Hybels and
Weaver (1992: 6) they are: senders and receivers, messages, channels, noise, feedback,
and setting.

8


Noise is interference that keeps a message from being understood or accurately
interpreted. Noise occurs between sender – receivers, and it comes in three forms:
external, internal, and semantic.
1.3. CROSS-CULTURAL COMMUNICATION
Students who study cultures and cross-cultural communication are to various degrees,
aware of three terms of culture- related communication:
- Intra-cultural communication is communication between people who live in the
same country and come from the same cultural background.
- Intercultural communication is communication between people who live in the
same country but come from different cultural backgrounds.
- Cross-cultural communication is communication between people who live in
different countries and come from different cultural back grounds.
1.4. NONVERBAL COMMUNICATON
1.4.1. Definition
While verbal communication conveys the message through words/ speaking out,
nonverbal communication indicates the message beyond words. It is clear that nonverbal
cues are more trustful than verbal ones, so it is more reliable for the audiences to
understand exactly what the speaker means.
As Levine and Adelman (1993: 100) hold that: “Nonverbal communication is
silent language, including the use of gestures, facial expressions, eye contact and
conversational distances”. These author seems to emphasize just some parts of nonverbal
communication, it is not a comprehensive view, at least, it is not simply “silent language”.
Nguyen Quang (2008: 61) has given his definition of nonverbal communication:
“Nonverbal communication is all the components of the message that, when taken
together, constitute the communication which is not verbally coded but both vocally and
10 non-vocally channeled. Nonverbal communication is composed of paralinguistic factors
(nonverbal vocal channel), such as rate, volume, etc. and extralinguistic factors

- Secondly, nonverbal behavior may contradict your words. Take a situation as
an example, when the student got a bad mark, the teacher frowned and said to
him: “Good”. So, in this case, “good” here could not have its own meaning
with a frowning.
- Thirdly, nonverbal behavior may regulate the flow of verbal interaction.
Speakers should know when to stop their conversation with the expressions of
nonverbal cues such as: eye contact, gesture or facial expressions. For instance,
when I am talking to my friend, if he/she looks away or makes thumb down, I
will immediately stop talking.
- Finally, nonverbal behavior may take the place of words. Nonverbal cues carry
out a function of a substitute for words. People even prefer using nonverbal
cues to verbal ones. For example, when seeing my friends, instead of saying
“Hi” to them, I just smile or show a V gesture. My friends not only understand
my greeting to them, but also know how glad I feel when meeting them.
1.4.4. Classification of nonverbal communication
Nguyen Quang (2007, 83) introduces a flowchart of nonverbal communication.
Whereas verbal communication is recognized by intra-language, nonverbal
communication finds its expression in: paralanguage and extra-language. In this
dissertation, the researcher studies eye contact, gestures and facial expressions included in
body language- the minor part of extra-language. Discussion will be presented in the next
chapter.
12 Figure 4: Nguyen Quang’s flowchart of nonverbal communication
1.5. PREVIOUS RELATED STUDIES
a. In the world
The importance of nonverbal cues in communication as well as in class interaction
is widely accepted. There have been many researchers interested in carrying out studies
on this issue. For instance, Okon (2011) states that our daily nonverbal behaviors reveal

American and Vietnamese communicators. Hang (2007) also emphasizes the frequency
and the specific performance of teachers‟ nonverbal behaviors. Nevertheless, she just
focuses on teachers‟ performance, ignores students‟ attitudes to the performance.
14 Moreover, she gives insights into eye contact, postures, and proxemics while the
researcher does research on eye contact, hand gestures, and facial expressions.
15 CHAPTER 2: NONVERBAL CUES

Direct eye-contact consists of three sub-types:
- Soft, warm eye contact: it often expresses truthfulness, sincerity, interest,
enjoyment
- Staring: it often conveys anger, conceit …
- Wide eyes: it often reveals confusion, surprise, fear …
Indirect eye-contact/ eye-contact avoidance, consists of the following sub-types:
- Looking upward: it often expresses conceit, evasion, uncertainty …
- Looking downward: it often shows shyness, embarrassment, shame, telling lies
…
- Looking sideway: it often conveys untruthfulness, I-don‟t-care attitude…
In addition, there are some other classifications of eye contact, such as classifying
them into four main kinds: intimate gaze, business gaze, social gaze, and public gaze (
Nguyen Quang, 2008: 126). However, in the thesis, the researcher investigates how
teachers of English maintain their eye contact with their students in class through direct
or indirect eye contact.
2.2. HAND GESTURES
2.2.1. Nature and importance of hand gestures
People often use hand gestures when they speak. They may use it consciously or
unconsciously to show clearly what they mean. For instance, instead of saying good bye,
they wave their hands. Moreover, when they praise someone, they clap their hands to
encourage him/her. Hence, communication becomes more meaningful with the help of
hand gestures.