Why Body Language Is Important?

When you learn a foreign language, you must learn more than the vocabulary and the grammar.To communicate successfully, you must also learn the non­verbal language, or “body language” of that culture.“Body language” is a term used to describe facial expressions, gestures, and other movements of the body that send messages.This means of communication is so important that we may actually say more with our movements than with words.

For some messages, words are not enough.Speaking a foreign language is sometimes difficult because we may not understand the non­verbal signals of another culture.For example, nodding the head up and down is a gesture that may communicate different messages in different parts of the world.In North America, it means “I agree”£®In the Middle East, nodding the head down means “I agree” and up means “I disagree”£®In a conversation among Japanese it often simply means “I'm listening”£®

Eye contact is also very meaningful, but it can also mean different things in different countries.In some Spanish­speaking countries, children show respect to an old person by not looking directly into the person's eye during a conversation.In other cultures, looking into a person's eye is expected.For example, if you don't do it in the United States, people may think that you are afraid, embarrassed, or angry.In the Middle East, direct eye contact in a conversation is more continuous than in many other parts of the world.People who are not used to this may feel uncomfortable.