Body, Emotion and Language

In the above descriptions regarding the phenomena of EFL children’s language exploration, the two major themes of ‘struggling’ and ‘meaning construction’ were discussed within the social constructivist’s view. Accordingly, the teacher’s role was significantly identified due to its impact on children’s social, mental, and linguistic power.

As well as ‘struggling’ and ‘meaning construction’, NVivo revealed ‘body’ as another sub-category of language exploration. Bodily expressions included warm-up games, creative movement, and assigned pair or group work. It created a chaotic, noisy, excited, and free atmosphere, in which pupils often laughed and smiled while making eye contact with each other. The physical activities usually involved verbal interactions, so that the pupils moved their bodies while talking individually or in groups. Also, it was noticeable that they assisted, negotiated,

170 and communicated as an ensemble in the midst of physical engagement. In order to unveil ideas within the repetitive patterns of the theme of ‘body’, I carefully observed the coding references of this sub-category. The below excerpts depict the phenomenon during or after the children’s physical engagement.

[Bodily engagement]

- Then, I (teacher) called the pupils to form a circle and started singing the ‘Hello’ song. I guided them with some physical warm-ups such as walking, counting, and making eye contact, or mirror games. Pupils giggled, laughed, and moved a lot in the classroom and had smiles on their faces all the time. One four-year-old girl voluntarily raised her hand and wanted to be a mirror.

- Later, I took a role as a person and asked them to be mirrors to copy me. I reviewed the previous week’s rhyme using motion and sound while the pupils followed me as mirrors.

- I slowly opened it, and took out the word card, which was ‘tub’. Then, I asked the pupils how to read and how to act out the word. The pupils enthusiastically answered and acted out the word. One girl put her arms together and made a tub shape. In this way, I let them review the words from the previous lesson. The pupils were excited and they giggled and laughed.

- Soon I asked them to form a circle and started the ‘mirror sound and motion game’. I introduced the word ‘concentrate’ and asked them to concentrate on the game. One person claps to the next person, who mirrors him or her while making eye contact, then the person who mirrored the clapping sends his or her clap to the next person, and so on. After mirroring clapping while saying the word ‘clap’, they moved on to mirror ‘flip flop’ by motion. The pupils were very excited and laughed a lot, but they also concentrated.

- We used the verbs ‘walk’, ‘stop’, ‘tiptoe’, ‘make a circle’, that kind of movement as motivation. It made them release their minds and relax.

171 The above references to the theme of ‘body’ show that bodily/kinesthetic activities produced a playful as well as a comfortable atmosphere in the classroom, in which pupils laughed and giggled but also concentrated on the activities. Therefore, in this relaxed environment that was created during bodily/kinesthetic activities, pupils’ anxiety levels were lowered; accordingly, this reduced the difficulty of commanding a foreign language. The excerpts below show the pupils’ autonomous oral language outcomes, followed by physical engagement.

[Bodily engagement – oral language outcome]

- Soon they could add their unique motion to the word while saying the sentence with the group. Then I (teacher) let them sit in a circle and discuss the little bug. I quickly wrapped myself in a black cape that was in the class and told them I was a little black bug. I improvised the dialogue as a black bug that was hungry and lonely. Then, I came out of the role, and asked if anyone could think of more dialogue for the little bug. Then, one girl raised her hand and she wanted to be a little bug. But, she refused to be black, and wanted to be orange. She grabbed the orange fabric that was nearby and put it on her shoulder. I accepted the orange colour and she came up to the front and improvised the orange bug. She was very brave to come up to the front but didn’t know what to say. She struggled a little, then started to act as an orange bug, saying ‘I’m hungry. Where’s my mommy?’. Her English naturally came out from the motivation of expressing her idea.

-At the end, we all sat in a circle and I put the black fabric on their knees and said that we were all one black bug. I asked who the bug was, where it was, and what it was doing. I put the bubble-shaped cut paper on each student’s head and asked them to say something about the bug. One said ‘I’m in the grass’, one said ‘I’m playing’, and another added ‘I’m playing hide and seek’.

172 As depicted in the above excerpts, the pupils were verbalising their thoughts while constructing meaningful context, which was propelled by dramatic engagement such as role-play or watching the teacher in a role. In fact, they could be easily engaged in this serious work because the earlier physical exercises such as warm-ups and creative movement relaxed them and decreased their anxiety.

In addition to such benefits with regard to emotional relaxation and oral language outcomes, physical engagement supported the pupils in comprehending the meaning of the words spoken in the foreign language, as shown in the excerpts below.

[Bodily engagement – meaning comprehension]

- I slowly opened it, and took out the word card for ‘tub’. Then, I asked the pupils how to read and how to act out the word. The pupils enthusiastically answered and acted out the word. One girl put her arms together and made a tub shape.

- When they learned ‘hump’, they didn’t know the meaning. I didn’t explain it in Korean, but I showed the motion, and even the youngest one understood the meaning.

As described above, when the word was acted out, the teacher did not need to make any effort to explain the meaning because bodily expressions delivered the meaning of the context while functioning as a non-verbal means of communication. Also, it was noticeable that the struggles in comprehending the foreign language were eased through bodily expressions, while engendering the pupils’ creative expression besides language acquisition. For instance, when the

173 pupils grasped the meaning of the word ‘tub’, they instantly expressed it with their bodies and even added creative ideas to convey the meaning of the word.

The above analysis reveals that bodily expressions are regarded as the catalyst to decrease children’s anxiety levels and promote a relaxed atmosphere in the classroom; hence, they become spontaneous learners of a foreign language while actively joining in the process of meaning construction.