Use of gestures and facial expression in language acquisition

Abstract

The researcher compares influence of teachers’ gesture and facial expression in language acquisition of both typical young learners and special young learners. The researcher observed 4 schools including 2 typical schools and 2 special schools. In typical school, each class had 25-30 students; and in special schools, each class had 5-10 students. Moreover, teacher’s interview was taken to collect the data and mixed method was applied to analyse the data. Findings show that, non-verbal communication like – gestures and facial expression is not only beneficial for special young learners but also helpful for typical young learners to demonstrate verbal communication. In future, the study will be very helpful for the teachers to make more use of gesture and facial expression in their teaching system to teach students in language acquisition.