Contributions to the empirical study of immediacy in the pedagogical relationship through self-narratives

Abstract

Pedagogical communication is an action wherein the body, being a part of a relational whole, performs a fundamental role. A bibliographical survey of studies on the interaction between teacher and student confirms that there is a strong correlation between the teacher's nonverbal behavior and the students' level of motivation and proficiency. Nonverbal communication constitutes an indispensable vehicle for the teacher's affections, intentions and attitudes towards her students, and vice-versa. Nonverbal elements are potential promoters of immediacy, i.e., the sensation of proximity between interacting agents, which is created by the communicative behaviors. The goal of this paper is to explore some relevant aspects for the empirical study of immediacy in a pedagogical environment. It starts off from the researcher's self-narrative based upon reports of her pedagogical experiences and proceeds with an elaboration of communicative immediacy and its impact upon the pedagogical relationship and the narrator herself.