Drama in the Classroom: How and Why Marketing Educators Can Use Nonverbal Communication and Enthusiasm to Build Student Rapport

Abstract

Nonverbal communication with students is important both outside and inside the classroom. The purpose of this article is to demonstrate how knowledge from the fields of dramaturgy and nonverbal communication can help marketing educators build rapport with their students inside the classroom. Building rapport with students and effectively communicating with them are two dominant and consistent themes found in the literature defining the most effective or “master” marketing professors. This article describes why and how marketing educators should and can use the traditional nonverbal tools of proxemics, kinetics, objectics, and paralanguistics as they “perform” enthusiastically in the marketing classroom “servicescape.” The article gives specific propositions and examples for using nonverbal tools.