Acknowledgement: Nur Afiqah Bt Muslim 1014278 TEASL INSTED International Islamic University Malaysia

The Perceptions of Misbehaved Students Towards Non-Verbal Communication in the Classroom of a Secondary School Teachers understandings on students behaviours are highly required nowadays especially to the students in secondary schools. Students in this present day are engaging in many characters and every of it has meaning. Usually, when students do certain behaviours, they might want something from the teachers, for example attention. There are some students who do not acquire proper language to speak out their problems to the teachers and as a result, they speak through their behaviours. Therefore, communication is very important among teacher and students in order to understand each other. Misbehaved students referred to the students who do any activity in the classroom that can cause interferences during the learning process. Unpreparedness for class, talking in class, rudeness to teachers, fighting and cheating were some of the misbehaviour activities that can interrupt the process of teaching and learning (Slavin, 2001; Hussain, 2005 as cited by Omoteso & Semudara, 2011). These misbehaviours were caused by many factors such as violence in media, broken families as well as drugs. Apart from that, school also gave greater impact on these misbehaviours. Therefore, classroom management is very important in dealing with this issue and teachers are expected to take few actions in handling these misbehaviours and one of them is classroom communication.

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Acknowledgement: Nur Afiqah Bt Muslim 1014278 TEASL INSTED International Islamic University Malaysia

2 As mentioned, classroom communication plays an important role in managing misbehaved students. McCroskey, McCroskey and Richmond (2006) referred classroom communication to the process by which one person stimulates meaning in the mind of another through verbal and/or nonverbal messages (pp. 2-3). Based on this definition, non-verbal communication is one of the communications that can be used by the teacher in the classroom especially in managing misbehaved students. As suggested by Mehrabian and Wienerfollowing (1967) that only 7% of message is sent through words, with remaining 93% sent nonverbal expressions (38% happens through voice tone and 55% happens via general body language). Perceptions of misbehaved students towards non-verbal communication give impacts to the teacher in establishing classroom communication. Therefore, teacher should know their students perception before using any communication. Oxford Advanced Learners Dictionary (2006) defined perception as the way you notice something, especially with the sense (p . 1079). While, misbehaved students referred to the students who involved in any activity that cause disturbance towards students own learning, other students learning as well as teachers ability to teach well (Merrett & Wheldall, 1986 as cited in Carotenuto, 2011). Non-verbal communication is one of the communications that can be used by the teacher in managing misbehaved students. Thus, non-verbal communication referred to those non-verbal stimuli in a communication setting that are generated by both the source and his use of the environment which contain messages for the source or receiver (Samovar, Porter & McDaniel, 2007 as cited in Yudarwati, n.d).

LS/WNA/AAR/RSA (Sem 2 20132014)

Acknowledgement: Nur Afiqah Bt Muslim 1014278 TEASL INSTED International Islamic University Malaysia

3 One theory that prompted research on how important is the non-verbal communication in managing misbehaviour students was Ray Birdwhistells Theory on Kinesics. This theory emphasized on body language which can help a person to tell his intention and interest. The body language that he used can also describe his behaviours. Therefore, in the classroom situation, teacher can used body language as non-verbal communication in managing misbehaviour students by rolling his eyes for example. When students saw their teacher rolled his eyes, they can understand that their teacher wanted them to behave and focus during the lesson. The literature has revealed that classroom communication was one of the classroom managements which necessary in managing misbehaved students in the classroom during the learning period. Therefore, in order to achieve effective communication, teacher and students must be able to correctly send and receive message. Johnson (1999) claimed that verbal and nonverbal communications can be used by the teachers in the classroom especially in managing misbehaved students. He also added that even though these two types of communication were mutually dependent, non-verbal communication was more effective in managing misbehaved students because non-verbal behaviours were used to support or modify verbal behaviours. In a classroom, a teacher will have different students with different needs. According to experts, there were five categories of students which are passive, aggressive, attention problems, perfectionist and socially incompetent. Then, effective classroom managements will treat different students with different strategies (Marzono & Marzoni, 2003 as cited by Wilkinson, Meiers & Knight, 2008). One of the strategies that teacher can use to manage misbehaved students was by applying non-verbal communication during the learning period.

LS/WNA/AAR/RSA (Sem 2 20132014)

Acknowledgement: Nur Afiqah Bt Muslim 1014278 TEASL INSTED International Islamic University Malaysia

4 Neill (1991) and Thibodeaux (1991) reported that non-verbal communication was potentially important because some messages needed to be sent implicitly rather than explicitly in order to avoid from embarrassing students. When messages were sent implicitly by using nonverbal signals, students would feel that their teacher was trying to help them and not to embarrass them. They would also feel that their teacher appreciated them so that, they would not involve in any misbehaviour activities and stay focus during the learning period. Geng (2011) stated that poor classroom communication between teacher and students can lead students to engage in doing disruptive behaviours. Brophy (1996) as cited by Geng (2011) then described that to reduce misbehaved students in the classroom, teacher should develop strong relationship and have good communication with the students. So, in this issue, teacher can use non-verbal communication with these misbehaved students such maintained eye contact with them (Neill & Caswell, 1993). Besides developing strong relationship, sustained eye contact indicated the level of interest towards each other. Thus, this allowed students to feel the sense of belongings to the classroom and made them behaved well during the lesson period. In brief, this meant that misbehaved students preferred teacher to use non-verbal communication in the classroom in order for them to behave well. In addition, Pease (1988) as cited in Muhammad Naeem Butt and Muhammad Shafiq (2013) mentioned that body movement was very important because it worked as punctuation marks in communication. Every movement that teacher made will give impact on students understanding. Thus, teacher needed to use correct body movements in order to give positive influences to the students. When misbehaved students saw their teacher acted in positive ways,

LS/WNA/AAR/RSA (Sem 2 20132014)

Acknowledgement: Nur Afiqah Bt Muslim 1014278 TEASL INSTED International Islamic University Malaysia

5 they also wanted to act in positive ways. At the end, misbehaviour activities can be reduced and students would be more focus during the lesson. Misbehaved students tend to lose focus easily especially on the first lesson. Hence, teacher should use a wide range of facial expressions, body movements and intonation to attract their attention (Neill & Caswell, 1993). Once teacher got their attention, teacher can manage them easily and prevent them from doing misbehaviour activities. Apart from that, these nonverbal stimuli can also increase their motivation to learn as they saw their teacher was very enthusiastic in teaching. In short, non-verbal communication can be used by the teacher in managing misbehaved students during the learning process. Many researches have mentioned about the perceptions of misbehaved students towards non-verbal communication used in the classroom, but there was little empirical study on the perceptions of misbehaved students towards non-verbal communication used in the classroom of a secondary school. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to investigate the perceptions of misbehaved students towards non-verbal communication used in the classroom of a secondary school.

The questions that the researcher seeks to answer are as follows: 1. What is the most effective facial expression perceived by misbehaved students to be used in a classroom of a secondary school?

LS/WNA/AAR/RSA (Sem 2 20132014)

Acknowledgement: Nur Afiqah Bt Muslim 1014278 TEASL INSTED International Islamic University Malaysia

6 2. What is the most effective body movement perceived by misbehaved students to be used in a classroom of a secondary school?

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