A Multimodal Study on Chinese Teachers’ Body Language for Laotian Students

Abstract

As a core element of nonverbal communication, Chinese teachers’ body language complements and reinforces classroom linguistic modalities. Drawing on multimodal discourse analysis, this study examined three international Chinese teachers and 61 beginner learners at a Laotian university through observations, questionnaires, and interviews. Results show that gestures and head movements dominate across teachers, while proxemic behavior is low-frequency yet highly efficient. The use of body language varies significantly by course type. Laotian students highly recognize gestures and facial expressions but show perceptual deviations in eye contact and proxemics, revealing a mismatch between teacher output and student perception. Accordingly, the study proposes targeted improvements across facial expressions, eye contact, gestures, and proxemic behavior, emphasizing functionality, compatibility, and cooperativity, to enhance teaching quality and support multimodal collaborative instruction.