K: That's Finished

Several weeks ago we taught a unit on Nonverbal Communication (i.e. gestures, facial expressions, body language, and signs). It was a pretty entertaining unit to teach because though some gestures and body language are the same in China as they are in the US, some vary from country to country. For example, if you were to flash the peace sign at a friend you would be proclaiming victory rather than peace. And if you were to circle your finger around your ear to signify "crazy" you would in fact be declaring that you are thinking.

With this in mind, we began the lesson by having students brainstorm for as many gestures and meanings as they could think of and then we looked at the bright and beautiful pictures in the textbook to discover and discuss new gestures and their meanings. After that there was a conversation for listening and practice about a foreign student from India who moves his head from side to side when you speak with him meaning that he agrees with what you're saying. This was a coincidentally applicable conversation because at the Medical College we do actually have about 100 Indian students who are here to study Chinese Traditional Medicine. I and my students were agreed that we have never seen any one of them do this when we are speaking with them. So instead of practicing this faulty dialogue, I had the students choose a different gesture, either from our discussion or from the book, and make new dialogues about possible and actual meanings. (We were also practicing using possibility/probability adverbs and modals.)

One of the dialogues that came out of this assignment has forever changed the way that I and my teammates communicate and we think that it could catch on globally...

Bailey and Robert (all of our students choose English names for themselves on the first day of class for two reasons: one, it's English class, and two, we can't pronounce nor remember all of their Chinese names) made a conversation about an American foreign student who statically poses his hands in opposition to communicate that he is finished; it looked quite Zen to me. It took me a few seconds to figure out where they had come up with this cock-eyed information and then I couldn't help but laugh. In the book, the man gesturing "That's finished" is brushing his hands together in the classic gesture as we all know it, and though I'd planned the lesson and taught it three times at that point, I hadn't seen it until the boys unintentionally pointed out that there was no indication that his hands were moving at all.  Robert said: And then he holds one hand up this way and one hand down that way, you know, like this (showing the gesture). And Bailey said: He must mean to say that he's finished. I almost didn't have the heart to explain that the hands should move together as though brushing off dirt because the confidence with which they demonstrated the non-gesture was endearing.

So now we have adopted this reformed gesture and use it any chance we get. This morning, I gave the last of my final exams... That's finished.