This paper reports on an investigation of non-verbal practices by primary school teachers. Following Bateson (1951), we suggest that non verbal practices are privileged ways to specify relationship in interactions. To describe classroom situations and teacher's actions, we have used concepts from didactics of mathematics (Brousseau, 1998 ; Chevallard, 1992 ; Sensevy, Mercier, Schubauer-Leoni, 2000), as they are elaborated in the Joint Action Theory (Sensevy & Mercier, 2007 ; Sensevy, 2008 ) and from anthropology (Mauss, 1936 ; Bateson, ibid ; Hall, 1963, 1966). Our description of non-verbal behaviors takes support on the proxemic theory (Hall, ibid), which is based on human perception of space. Proxemic theory allow us to consider teacher et student's behaviors with concepts of “distance” and “territory”, rather than “signal” (Shannon & Weaver, 1948), within an “orchestral” approach rather than a “telegraphic” approach (Winkin, 2000). Our basic hypothesis is : « what is close, for me, is more important than what is remote ». Didactic and Joint Action Theory allow us to consider proxemic adjustments in teacher's practices by taking into consideration subject matter content and learning-teaching stakes. These didactic and proxemic conceptual tools have been used to analyze classroom situations and teacher's actions, most of them in the first year of French primary school. They form the background of a specific methodology for video-data analysis, that aims at showing how teachers use proxemic techniques as an important part of didactic relationship. In this paper, we attempt to show the main characteristics of this methodology, which is based on « no-sound video watching » (Forest, 2006). We present some results of the study through two empirical examples. The first example is a compilation of dynamics patterns that we named « didactic self-effacement ». We observed these patterns with different teachers, and we explore the idea that they contribute to the management of joint-attention (Eilan, 2005). The second example is an interaction study of a short moment of teaching and learning, occurring in a reading lesson about verbal forms. This example reveals the way in which the body language techniques are used in synergy with other techniques, such as involving material or language-based ones. We envisage in conclusion epistemological implications of this type of integrated analysis for communication studies, around some concepts as fitting ( [agencement] Deleuze & Guattari, 1980), and analogic-digital distinction (Bateson, ibid ; Wilder, 1998), in order to provide a better understanding of the semiosis process analyzed in the Joint Action Theory descriptions.

Video analysis, no-sound video watching, proxemic analysis, didactic analysis

epistemological implications of this type of analysis for communication studies.