I Thought I was Fluent!

As I and my fellow classmates stepped off the plane for our first day in Italy, I was nervous and excited to use my American-learned Italian to communicate with the locals. After four long years of studying and practicing the Italian language at The University of Texas with other English speaking students, we were eager to put our skills to the test as we ventured out of our language comfort-zones.

After only three encounters with local Italians, my friends and I quickly realized that although we were well versed in the spoken language, we stood out for not knowing any of the culturally significant non-verbal gestures that seemed to flow naturally in every conversation. I recalled a statement I had read that relayed that “since gestures are largely produced and received consciously, we quickly become aware of the foreign gestures and the “foreign accent” they produce” (Kirch 416). Although our spoken accents were perfect, had we been labeling ourselves as foreigners just by the way we moved? It became clear that just because we were fluent in vocabulary and grammar, we were far from fluent in Italian.

Allen suggests that “nonverbal [can] enhance comprehension by providing additional contextual information” (Allen 472). As students studying a foreign language, coupling important nonverbal cues would help by providing a visual backboard that correlates to syntactic and grammatical information. I wish my Italian teacher would have incorporated more of these cues into daily lessons because “nonverbal in the foreign language classroom can facilitate comprehension by activating concepts already stored as mental representations in the student’ memories” (472). Allen explains that in a study performed by Ward and Raffler-Engel in which students were learning a foreign language, it was found that students recalled more dialogue lines when the instructor exhibited nonverbal behavior conducive to learning” versus students who learned the language from audio memorization alone (473). Integrating non-verbal communication into foreign language classrooms would not only help students learn the language more completely, but could promote the foreign language at a faster rate.

Non-verbal communication is as equally part of a country’s culture and identity as the spoken language itself. When I arrived in Italy thinking I was fluent in the language, I recognized how my Italian education was incomplete because of this lack of non-verbal knowledge. If you plan on taking a trip to a foreign culture, take the advice from my friends and me, and learn how they communicate non-verbally! You will be able to fit in and feel as if your foreign language education paid off.

I have so much more to learn being here in Italy with my friends. Check in tomorrow for more updates on what my friends and I are learning from this great culture!

Shelly Rawson

Kirch, M.S. (Dec., 1979). Non-Verbal Communication Across Cultures. The Modern Language Journal, Vol. 63, No. 8. Wiley-Blackwell.

Allen, L. (Feb., 1999) Functions of Nonverbal Communication in Teaching and Learning a Foreign Language. The French Review, Vol. 72, No. 3. American Association of Teachers of French.