*Intercultural Communication; *Nonverbal

The literature on foreign language instruction focuses on communicative competence and proficiency in producing culturally and situationally appropriate utterances. Traditionally, nonverbal aspects of communication have not been emphasized. Systematic study of this field is relatively recent in communication research. Both verbal and nonverbal aspects of communication are important to the sociolinguistic approach to language teaching. The status of gestures has been widely misinterpreted; they do not stand alone but substitute for linguistic behavior. More focused attention should be given to developing communicative competence through gestures. There are two opposing views about how and to what extent gestures should be taught, one emphasizing interpretation of gestures and the other stressing their active production. Lack of nonverbal expertise in another can lead to miscommunication despite substantial linguistic competence. Little information on the teaching of cross-cultural gestural comparisons is available, but the scattered suggestions in the literature concerning observation and use of instructional materials can be helpful in the classroom. (MSE