RUNNING HEAD: Teacher immediacy and its implications for TESOL
Heather Swenddal
Teacher immediacy and its implications for TESOL
May 17, 2011
San Francisco State University
1 Teacher immediacy and its implications for TESOL Teacher immediacy and its implications for TESOL
“[T]he teacher is, on the one hand, the director and foreman of the social environment
in the classroom, and on the other, a part of this very same environment.”
-- Vygotsky, 1997, p. 50
Introduction
The last two decades of second-language acquisition research have brought renewed
focus to the social environment of the language classroom. Language learning is no longer seen
as purely internal, dependent on each individual’s skills and motivations. Rather, learning is
widely viewed as a social process, intertwined with a learner’s identity and impacted by her
social experiences (Norton, 1997). This perspective can be partially traced to the work of the
educational psychologist Vygotsky (1997), who in the early 20th century argued that knowledge
is a social construction, created through interaction between two or more people. Long’s (1996)
suggestion that interaction facilitates language learning reflects this view, as does the very nature
of the Communicative Language Teaching approach, which encourages teachers to promote
student interaction in their classrooms.
Yet while much has been said in TESOL pedagogy about what a teacher should do in the
classroom—use interactive activities, facilitate group work, etc.—little recent attention has been
devoted to the question of how a teacher should be in the classroom. How should a teacher
stand? How should she manipulate her body? How can her words and gestures engage and
inspire learners? If we see language teachers as part of the learning environment, capable of
shaping the mood and learning affordances of a classroom, it follows that we should consider the
ways in which teachers’ deliberate and unintentional social behaviors support or interfere with
their pedagogical intentions. During my time in this TESOL program I intend to study these
behaviors, exploring both the source of what I call teachers’ “social moves” and the impact of
these moves on language learners’ identities, motivation, and ultimate achievement.
For this paper, I have limited my focus to one aspect of this larger interest: teacher
immediacy. Immediacy has been defined as the “psychological closeness” that is created
between communicators through behaviors like eye contact (Pogue & Ahyun, 2006, p. 332).
Nonverbal immediacy—and to a lesser extent verbal immediacy—has been widely studied in the
2 Teacher immediacy and its implications for TESOL field of instructional communication, and is considered by many communication researchers to
be “one of the most important types of teacher behaviors influencing students” (Pogue & Ahyun,
2006, p. 332). However, despite the salience of this topic to language teaching, it has not been
significantly addressed in the TESOL field. I find this surprising, since language teaching relies
heavily on nonverbal communication. As Brown (2001) notes, “in language classes, especially,
where students may not have all the skills they need to decipher verbal language, their attention
is drawn to nonverbal communication” (p. 244). Clearly, the study of teacher immediacy is
relevant to the TESOL profession.
This paper is an exploration of teacher immediacy and its application potential for
TESOL. In the first section I further define teacher immediacy and describe the teacher
behaviors that have been typically associated with it. I then synthesize the findings of several
studies relating teacher immediacy to student learning and affect. The following section
addresses a question that is quite important for TESOL application: whether immediacy
behaviors are consistently effective across cultures. I then discuss the potential for pedagogical
intervention in teacher’s immediacy behaviors, introducing an exciting tool—acting training—
which one TESOL educator has used to help pre-service EFL teachers gain awareness and
control of these behaviors. The paper concludes with some brief thoughts regarding the future of
immediacy studies in TESOL.
Defining and assessing immediacy
The current concept of immediacy evolved from Mehrabian’s (1971) immediacy
principle, which states that "people are drawn toward persons and things they like, they evaluate
highly, and prefer; they avoid or move away from things they dislike, evaluate negatively, or do
not prefer" (p 1, as quoted in Richmond, McCroskey, & Johnson, 2003, p. 505). As a
psychologist, Mehrabian was interested in the feelings which prompt people to exhibit
immediacy behaviors—an approach that Richmond et al. (2003) summarize as “liking creates
immediacy” (p. 505). Instructional communication researchers, however, have been more
concerned with the result of those behaviors on an interlocutor—the idea that “immediacy
creates liking” (Richmond et al., 2003, p. 505). This interest is reflected in Richmond and
3 Teacher immediacy and its implications for TESOL McCroskey’s (2000a) updated immediacy principle, which states that "the more communicators
employ immediate behaviors, the more others will like, evaluate highly, and prefer such
communicators; and the less communicators employ immediate behaviors the more others will
dislike, evaluate negatively, and reject such communicators" (p. 212).
Immediacy can therefore be seen as a social tool with the potential to cultivate positive
feelings in an interlocutor, making it quite relevant to teaching. Activating this tool involves the
deployment of a variety of verbal and non-verbal immediacy behaviors. Verbal immediacy is
typically associated with teacher behaviors like using humor, inclusive pronouns, self-disclosure,
and compliments (Witt, Wheeless & Allen, 2004, p. 189), while non-verbal immediacy involves
“eye gaze, open body position, smiling, gestures, appropriate touch, moving around the
classroom, and using vocal variety in inflection, tone, pace, and pitch” (Witt & Kriep, 2009, p.
80). Of the two, non-verbal immediacy has been the subject of much more communication
research. Interestingly, some research that has included both emphases has found that verbal
immediacy is often eclipsed by nonverbal immediacy: as Witt et al. (2004) note, “there are some
indications that outcomes of teachers' verbal behaviors are mediated or overridden by teachers'
nonverbal behaviors” (p. 187). In other words, what teachers say may be less important than how
they say it.
Several instruments have been developed to assess teachers’ nonverbal immediacy,
primarily for the purposes of relating immediacy with other teaching and learning issues like
teacher credibility and student motivation. Appendix A on page 15 is Richmond et al.’s (2003)
Nonverbal Immediacy Scale (NIS)—the latest iteration of an immediacy-measurement tool that
they and other researchers have been improving since the 1970s (p. 509). The NIS consists of 26
questions in which participants rate, on a five-point scale, the degree to which the subject
performs various immediacy behaviors. Half of the questions are positive, like “I am animated
when I talk to people,” and half are negative, like “I look over or away from others when talking
to them.” The sum of the negative questions is subtracted from the sum of the positive questions,
leading to a concrete figure which researchers can use for cross-referencing with other data. The
studies which I present in the following sections all used some version of this instrument, which
has remained relatively consistent throughout its iterations.
4 Teacher immediacy and its implications for TESOL Effects of teacher immediacy behaviors
Teacher immediacy and student learning
One of the key questions that Instructional Communication researchers have asked about
immediacy is whether and how teacher immediacy facilitates student learning. Witt et al. (2004)
address this question in a meta-analysis of several decades of research, examining the
relationship between teacher immediacy and three different kinds of student learning: cognitive,
affective, and perceived. Cognitive learning “pertains to the actual information gained” in a
course, affective learning involves students’ “emotional responses to the instructor and
classroom,” and perceived learning is the amount of learning which students believe they have
experienced (Gayle, Preiss, Burrell & Allen, 2010, p. 385). The major finding of Witt et al.
(2004) is that teacher immediacy behaviors have a greater link with affective and perceived
learning than with cognitive learning: students with immediate teachers enjoy their classes and
believe that they are learning, but their actual cognitive gain is only slightly higher than that of
students taught by a non-immediate teacher (p. 201).
Witt et al’s (2004) finding has been confirmed in subsequent studies (Allen, Witt &
Wheeless, 2006; King & Witt, 2009), but these researchers stress that the lower correlation of
cognitive learning and immediacy does not compromise the importance of teacher immediacy.
Instead, it brings affective learning into primary focus, suggesting that immediacy-driven student
affect may facilitate other important learning processes. King & Witt (2009) make this argument
by linking teacher immediacy with student motivation, noting that even if immediacy does not
increase student retention of content, an immediate teacher “may have an impact that supersedes
those measures” by motivating the student to learn (p. 119). Allen et al. (2006) make a similar
argument, and suggest that the learning benefits inherent in positive affect eventually facilitate
cognitive learning (p. 27). These studies confirm what is now well established in TESOL
pedagogy: that affect is a catalyst for a range of factors that can support or impede student
learning (Krashen, 1982). What these instructional communication studies contribute to this
knowledge is the understanding that teacher immediacy can facilitate positive student affect.
5 Teacher immediacy and its implications for TESOL Affective benefits of teacher immediacy
Student affect is of particular importance in language education, where issues of
motivation, anxiety and language ego can facilitate or inhibit acquisition. Krashen (1982) noted
the importance of lowering students’ affective filters in language classrooms, relieving the strain
on their cognitive load that can interfere with learning. The link between immediacy and affect
suggests that teacher’s immediacy behaviors may help lower students’ affective filters and make
them feel more comfortable in the L2 classroom, thereby setting the stage for language learning.
Although immediacy studies have identified several affective benefits of teacher’s immediacy
behaviors, two of these benefits are particularly relevant to TESOL: motivation and willingness
to communicate.
The impact of language learners’ motivation on their learning has been widely
documented in SLA (Gardner, 1985; Csizer & Dornyei, 2005). Immediacy research suggests that
teachers’ immediacy behaviors can increase students’ motivation. In their meta-analysis of
immediacy and affective variables, Allen et al. (2006) found a strong link between teacher
immediacy and student affect, concluding that teacher immediacy is “an aspect of classroom
behavior that can improve learning outcomes by increasing student motivation” (p. 28). Hsu’s
(2010) study of nonverbal teacher immediacy in a Taiwanese EFL context found a similar,
TESOL-specific link: that teachers’ immediacy behaviors “effectively and powerfully enhance
student’s motivation for learning English” (p. 199).
The positive affect produced by teacher immediacy can also increase English learners’
willingness to communicate. Two studies of EFL learners in China suggest a link between
teacher immediacy and students’ willingness to communicate. Wen and Clement (2003) posit
that teacher immediacy can help students feel “emotionally secure,” “sufficiently motivated,”
and more engaged in language learning, noting that “in the Chinese English classroom, teacher
involvement and immediacy can be regarded as a significant precursor of a student's positive
affect, and would be expected to increase willingness to communicate” (p. 28). Yu (2011)
explored this idea in her study of English learners in China and found “significant predictive
power of teacher immediacy on communication apprehension and self-perceived communication
competence”—two factors which she suggested “indirectly affect students’ willingness to
6 Teacher immediacy and its implications for TESOL communicate in English” (p. 100). The affective benefits of teacher immediacy are therefore
significant for language educators, since students’ willingness to communicate will result in
classroom interaction, ultimately leading to student learning.
Immediacy across cultures
Teacher immediacy studies in the field of instructional communication have primarily
been conducted in United States universities. Several researchers have questioned whether these
U.S.-specific data could reasonably be applied to instructional settings outside this environment
(McCroskey & Fayer, 1996; Witt et al., 2004; Zhang, Gao, Wilcox & Takai, 2007). This is
perhaps the most crucial question to be addressed when applying immediacy studies to the
TESOL profession: Since most English learners are from non-English speaking cultures, it is
important to determine whether immediacy behaviors are universally effective, and how they
might change across cultures. This section will discuss several studies that attempt to answer this
question.
Perhaps the most crucial cross-cultural distinction that has been made in this area is
between verbal and nonverbal immediacy behaviors. Verbal immediacy behaviors appear to be
more culturally specific than their non-verbal counterparts; as Zhang et al. (2007) note, “some
immediate behaviors in U.S. classrooms, such as engaging in small talk, self- disclosure, and
addressing students by their first names, are considered inappropriate in Chinese classrooms” (p.
232). Nonverbal immediacy behaviors, in contrast, do not seem so culturally bound. Several
studies indicate that nonverbal immediacy behaviors are to a great degree effective across
cultures (McCroskey & Fayer, 1996; Witt et al., 2004; Zhang et al., 2007).
Witt et al. (2004) explored the question of universality in their meta-analysis of more
than two decades of nonverbal immediacy studies. In reviewing the international studies that had
been done on the subject, they noted that “collectively, findings from these cross-cultural studies
generally indicate a positive relationship between nonverbal teacher immediacy and students'
affective and perceived learning” (p. 186). McCroskey & Fayer (1996) found similar results in
their study of university students in the U.S., Finland, Puerto Rico and Australia, noting that
7 Teacher immediacy and its implications for TESOL teacher immediacy and student affect seem invariably linked, regardless of the immediacy norms
of the culture (p. 303).
While these studies suggest a universal relationship between teacher immediacy
behaviors and student affect, several researchers have explored the possibility that individual
immediacy behaviors are assessed differently in different cultures. Zhang et al. (2007) sought to
identify these differences by testing the Nonverbal Immediacy Measure (an instrument similar to
the NIS in Appendix A) in China, Germany, Japan and the U.S. While they found
“overwhelming cultural similarities in the evaluation of the teacher immediacy behaviors” across
cultures for this instrument as well as a Chinese immediacy test, they noted that three teacher
behaviors have “varying reliabilities across cultures”: looking at a class, smiling at individual
students, and using a monotone voice (p. 244). This observation is echoed in Hsu’s (2010)
finding that Taiwanese students, unlike their U.S. peers, consider a monotone teacher voice a
positive immediacy behavior—possibly because they associate it with a “gentle” or “non-angry”
intention (p. 199). In this case, what is a low-immediacy behavior in a U.S. context is a highimmediacy behavior in a Taiwanese context: evidence of some cultural variation.
It is important to note, however, that these few exceptions are minimal in comparison
with the broad range of cross-culturally valid immediacy behaviors that these studies have
observed. Of the many immediacy behaviors Hsu (2010) studied, a monotone voice was the only
behavior which varied in cultural interpretation. The Taiwanese university students that she
surveyed identified smiling as the most effective teacher immediacy behavior, and reported the
strongest positive associations with three other immediacy behaviors: “a relaxed body position,”
“gestures,” and “a variety of vocal expression while teaching English” (p. 198). These findings
complement those of McCrosky & Fayer (1996), who found that “vocal variety, eye contact, and
smiling were generally the nonverbal behaviors most highly related to affective learning” in the
four countries that they studied—the U.S., Finland, Puerto Rico and Australia (p. 303). While
these findings contrast somewhat with Zhang et al.’s (2007) emphasis on the varied
interpretations of looking at a class and smiling at individual students, this may simply indicate
the intensity to which these behaviors should be performed in different cultures.
Some research suggests that the cultural distinction between different perceptions of
immediacy behaviors may not be whether or not a behavior is seen as immediate, but how
8 Teacher immediacy and its implications for TESOL pronounced it must be to be seen as immediate. McCroskey & Fayer (1996) found that students
reported more immediacy behaviors from U.S. and Puerto Rican teachers than from Australian
and Finnish teachers, but did not report a difference in affective learning—a finding that the
researchers cite as evidence that “whether the norms in the culture favor high or low immediacy,
if the teacher is comparatively more immediate, the student's affective learning is enhanced” (p.
303). Crabtree and Sapp (2004) illustrate this point in their account of their experiences teaching
at an American university in Brazil. They note that while teacher behaviors like smiling and
making eye contact are considered immediate in the U.S., the highly immediate culture of Brazil
perceives these behaviors as merely polite. To be seen as immediate by Brazilian students, a
teacher “must stand very near to, frequently touch and be touched, embrace, and achieve a very
high level of empathy with her students” (p. 120). In this case, it is the frequency and intensity of
the immediacy behaviors—not the behaviors themselves—that determine their effectiveness.
Immediacy training for teachers
While more TESOL-specific research should be done to confirm the universality of
certain immediacy behaviors and isolate cultural differences in perceiving them, the studies
discussed in this paper highlight the value of teachers exhibiting immediacy behaviors in their
language classes. Some researchers, however, warn against strategic use of these behaviors. Witt
& Kerssen-Griep (2011) suggest that teachers view immediacy behaviors as “desired perceptions
to earn from their students” rather than “types of cues or tactics to try” (p. 90). Perhaps this
concern is due to immediacy’s original conception as an outward signal of genuine affinity; in
this view, it could be argued that utilizing immediacy behaviors absent true feeling is
disingenuous.
Although this focus on authenticity is admirable, it ignores the nature of what Bourdieu
(1990) calls the habitus—the embodied history of physical behaviors that informs human beings’
movement and gestures. Bourdieu’s work has been applied to SLA studies of learner identity
(Norton, 1997), which have explored how language learners adopt the paralinguistic elements of
the target language: observing and eventually producing the target mannerisms. For people
learning how to be language teachers, a similar habitus transformation is necessary. A teacher
9 Teacher immediacy and its implications for TESOL cannot exhibit a behavior that she has not learned; she must be made aware of immediacy
behaviors and how they are perceived by students. As Lazarton and Ishihara (2005) suggest,
“given that nonverbal behavior is largely subconscious… if no training is provided on its
effective application, it is likely that language teachers will use it without ever reflecting on or
analyzing how such behavior is implicated in learning in the L2 classroom” (p. 539).
Considering the significant link between teacher immediacy and student affect, training in
exhibiting immediacy is imperative for TESOL instructors.
Ozmen (2010) believes that teacher immediacy behaviors can and should be taught in
TESOL education; he considers language teaching “a role to be rehearsed and practiced” and
advocates explicit instruction in exhibiting immediacy behaviors (p. 12). Ozmen (2010) links
immediacy to teacher identity, and suggests that acting classes can teach pre-service teachers to
gain awareness and control of their immediacy behaviors, thereby developing their teacher
identities (p. 11). He studied the effects of an acting course on 44 pre-service EFL teachers in
Turkey, and found that this theatrical training made a “significant contribution to the
development of the nonverbal immediacy of teacher trainees” (p. 11). Introducing these trainees
to acting techniques expanded their range of possible behaviors, creating a cyclical effect in
which their behaviors shaped their teacher identities and their teacher identities shaped their
behaviors. In other words, each student’s habitus was altered—equipped with new behavioral
options.
While acting training may be a worthwhile addition to teacher education programs,
simple awareness of immediacy issues may be a helpful first step. Crabtree and Sapp (2004)
described the discomfort that an American university professor in Brazil felt at the highly
immediate behavior of her students. Initially rattled by their intense eye contact and affectionate
physical touch, she eventually adjusted to their expectations, “increas[ing] the range and
intensity of behaviors to a level that would read as immediate in a Brazilian setting” (p. 122-123).
The effect of this adjustment highlights the relationship between teacher immediacy and student
affect: “The students reciprocated with more attention in class and no longer felt intimidated by
the professor, which helped them become more committed to the learning process” (p. 122-123).
The teacher’s explicit attention to immediacy issues helped her to adapt to her students’ culture,
10 Teacher immediacy and its implications for TESOL allowing her to regain control as the “director” of her classrooms’ social environment (Vygotsky,
1997, p. 50).
Conclusion
Teacher immediacy has not received significant attention in the fields of SLA and
TESOL, despite the range and significance of immediacy studies in Instructional Communication.
This is surprising, given the current emphasis on learning as a social construction. If the social
environment of the language classroom determines how students will feel and whether they will
interact, it holds that teachers should be equipped to do everything within their power to shape a
positive, learner-friendly classroom environment. Since TESOL and communication studies have
shown that teacher immediacy fosters positive student affect, it is crucial that English-language
teachers gain awareness and control over their immediacy behaviors. This can be achieved
through acting training, in which pre- and in-service teachers learn to develop immediacy and
hone their “teacher identities” through a range of practice exercises (Ozmen, 2010, p. 11).
Though training in generally-universal immediacy behaviors is a legitimate addition to
any TESOL-education program, more research should be devoted to further identifying and
analyzing the teacher behaviors which have been identified as culturally specific. Knowing that,
for example, Brazilian students welcome intense eye contact is important for an ESL teacher, as
is the awareness that monotone voices are preferred by Taiwanese language learners. While
teachers need not transform their personalities for each group of students, knowing how to
recognize and use universally-effective and culturally-specific immediacy behaviors can greatly
improve the efficacy of their teaching, helping them shape the learning environment in a way
that lowers students’ affective filters and increases their motivation and willingness to
communicate, priming them for interaction and learning.
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14 Teacher immediacy and its implications for TESOL Appendix 1: Teacher Immediacy Scale developed by Richmond, McCroskey, & Johnson (2003)