Instructional Functions of Speech And Gesture in the L2 Classroom
- Author:
- Smotrova, Tetyana
- Published:
- [University Park, Pennsylvania] : Pennsylvania State University, 2014.
- Physical Description:
- 1 electronic document
- Additional Creators:
- Lantolf, James P.
Access Online
- etda.libraries.psu.edu , Connect to this object online.
- Restrictions on Access:
- Open Access.
- Summary:
- Recent decades have seen a surge of interest in the pedagogical functions of gesture and their implications for student learning. While an impressive amount of work has been done in general educational contexts, fewer studies have investigated the role of gesture in the language classroom. Moreover, the vast majority of these studies focus either on the ways learners mediate their thinking with gesture or the manner in which teachers employ gesture in instructional interaction. There is also lack of longitudinal studies of gesture in the language classroom, which would allow for tracking the impact of teacher-student gesturing on learning. The present study 1) investigates the instructional/learning functions of teacher and student gesturing coordinated with speech in the process of classroom L2 learning; 2) provides evidence of student learning as a consequence of gesture-based mediation; and 3) documents how teacher and student use of gesture in the ESL classroom changes over time. The primary data for the study are comprised of 32 hours of video recordings of classroom interactions collected over six weeks at a U.S. university Intensive English Communication Program. The data also include the teacher's PowerPoint slides and the textbook employed during classroom activities as well as responses from an instructor questionnaire, student questionnaire, and an instructor follow-up interview. Framed within Vygotskian sociocultural theory (Lantolf & Thorne, 2006), the study also adopts theoretical frameworks and methodologies of gesture analysis developed by McNeill (1992, 2005) and Kendon (2004). The findings indicate that teacher and student gestures employed in their classroom interactions served important instructional and learning functions in the process of mastering different aspects of language. Thus, the teacher's gesture 1) facilitated student learning of vocabulary, pronunciation, and grammar; 2) enhanced teacher/student affective alignment and encouraged student participation; 3) externalized teacher cognition, which became accessible to students and had important social/instructional consequences. Similarly, student gesturing fulfilled important learning functions, as it allowed them to: 1) express their understandings of L2 concepts through gesture before they were able to verbalize the concepts; 2) appropriate the teacher's gesture and employ it as a learning tool; 3) mediate their own thinking in L2 through private gesture; 4) use gesture in peer interactions to facilitate their fellow students' understandings of L2 meanings. In most of the research literature that has examined gesture in the L2 classroom focus has been either on the teacher's or on the students' use of gesture. The present study demonstrates the value of considering the use of gesture in the pedagogical interactions between the teacher and students and among students. It considers teacher and student gesturing as a dialogical co-constructed process unfolding in real-time interaction. Such an approach combined with the longitudinal perspective allowed for tracking of student responsivity to the teacher's gestural strategies and identifying which of these were more conducive to learning. The study also points to significant instructional functions of teacher and student catchments as manifestations of dialogicity in classroom L2 learning. The study has important implications for SLA pedagogy, indicating that language teachers need to become aware of the pedagogical benefits of gesture in developing their student understandings and verbalizations in L2. Teachers also need to be sensitized to their student gestures as an important source of information about their current levels of language development. The study offers recommendations to teacher education programs on ways of incorporating instructional gesture into teacher preparation. Finally, it makes a contribution to the methodology of gesture research by elaborating the notions of catchment, growth point, beat, and gestural hold.
- Other Subject(s):
- Dissertation Note:
- Ph.D. Pennsylvania State University 2014.
- Reproduction Note:
- Microfilm (positive). 1 reel ; 35 mm. (University Microfilms 36-47513)
- Technical Details:
- The full text of the dissertation is available as an Adobe Acrobat .pdf file ; Adobe Acrobat Reader required to view the file.
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