Eye Contact

Eyes, I like them. Everyone has interesting eyes, different yes, color and depth and shape and sparkle.  Eyes do a lot of talking, but like anything they can be deceptive or misunderstood.  I've also had a lot of people comment on how I often give them strange looks, my eyes talk but I don't know if my direct consciousness is always behind that talking.  I do a lot of my acting with my eyes (this was in acting classes, so not so as strange), and sometimes it has worried me because I'm not always aware of what messages my eyes are sending people and if what they are picking up is something I did not intend.

I was thinking about a few of these things when we read the articles on looking and body language.  I've been trying to pay more attention to what messages my body language is sending.  At work the students I teach sometimes mention in my evaluations that they don't feel close to me.  I've thought of a series of things that this could be attributed to but I think one of them is simply my body language.  In class I tend to have a lot of positions that are closed off, I often fold my arms, for instance.  I've been experimenting with being more open in my stance and gestures.

I was considering, also, how this situation would be changed entirely in a different culture.  There will be different expectations of how to behave and what is proper or expected will change right along with that.  I will need to learn what kinds of body language says what for the people I am living with, interacting with and teaching in India. The thing we talked most about in class, I felt, was the eye contact. Back to eyes, I wondered how hard this would be for me, to make sure I am not making inappropriate eye contact and sending messages I do not intend or that could get me into trouble.

In other news, but I'll relate it quick.  I met with the man from Saudi Arabia at the Selnate school that I will be working with on English for the first time last week. I thought ahead of time about how I should observe the eye contact and his behaviors, and try to follow his lead but also start out by not making too much eye contact.  I did and it was so much harder than I though it would be! I am used to looking very directly into peoples eyes and then usually switching my gaze between their mouth and eyes.  I once was told that looking at the eyes while you talk and the mouth more when they are talking is the proper way to show someone that you are paying attention to them, because you can read their mouth as they talk and get the message better?  I suppose that is why.  On from that, however, not looking at someone almost at all when talking to them was very difficult for me.

I found that he was doing the same, however.  He wouldn't look at me.  A few times I experimented looking more directly at him but he would look away or around the room or down at his book.  It felt most natural when we both had a location to be looking, like at an assignment, at books, or at the map.  That was the best part.  We stood side by side and looked at a map and then our conversation seemed to flow much more easily.  I intend to keep track of if this become easier of eases up even once we know each other better and I think it is good practice for potential situations I will be in while in India that could be similar.

About teaching, after only an hour of doing some simple study buddy things and having one questions asked of me about grammar I was already feeling extremely inexperienced.  I know that's what the purpose of the internship is, but I'm going into it in a very unconventional way and need to set things up myself and will need to work out problems and questions with no one to go to. I've started looking a lot more into curriculum because of this and those plans are forthcoming.  In the end I looked up the best way to explain some grammar he had asked about and got to learn something myself and we spent most of the time just talking because he felt that was the best practice.  Some of my teaching philosophies point that way also, being able to talk and have in the moment correction in a strategic manner is one of the better ways to improve communication skills in a new language and to make grammar principles become automatic. I'm excited to keep learning about language, how to teach language and about the large scope of language that comes from not speaking at all.