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Article published In: Gesture
Vol. 22:2 (2023) ► pp.189–226

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Do teachers adapt their gestures in linguistically heterogeneous second language teaching to learners’ language proficiencies?

ORCiD logo with link | German Institute for Adult Education – Leibniz Centre for Lifelong Learning
ORCiD logo with link | TU Dortmund University
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Available under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial (CC BY-NC) 4.0 license.

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This article was made Open Access under a CC BY-NC 4.0 license through payment of an APC by or on behalf of the authors.

Published online: 2 April 2024
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https://doi.org/10.1075/gest.22023.sah
Abstract
Teachers’ use of gestures in the classroom can support the language acquisition of learners in learning a second language (Stam, G., & Tellier, M. (2022). Gesture helps second and foreign language learning and teaching. In A. Morgenstern & S. Goldin-Meadow (Eds.), Gesture in language: Development across the lifespan, pp. 335–363. De Gruyter Mouton; American Psychological Association. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar). Depending on learners’ language skills, different dimensions of gestures (e.g., deictic, metaphorical) are considered to facilitate successful language comprehension. This study investigates which gestures teachers use in German as a second language (GSL) classrooms and to what extent teachers adapt their gestures to learners’ language proficiency. Teacher gestures in 10 video-recorded integration and preparation classes were analyzed. Two coders reliably identified 4143 gestures. Results show that GSL teachers predominantly used deictic gestures, metaphorical gestures, and feedback by head movements. Moreover, between-learner variability in teachers’ use of deictic and metaphorical gestures was explained by teacher-perceived German language proficiency of learners. These results suggest that teachers systematically adapt some dimensions of gestures in GSL classes, thus emphasizing the importance of studying nonverbal interactions for a better understanding of language acquisition processes.
Article outline
  • Introduction
  • The role of gestures in second language learning
    • Dimensions of gestures
    • Adaption of gestures and language proficiency of the interlocutors
  • Present study
  • Method
    • Sample
    • Materials and procedure
      • Videos / session structure
      • Annotations of gestures and targets
      • Questionnaire data and language proficiency test
      • Reliability of measurement
      • Analysis
  • Results
    • RQ1: What dimensions of gestures do teachers use in GSL classes?
    • RQ2: Does teachers’ use of gestures vary between teachers and between learners of the same learning group?
    • RQ3: Can the variance in the use of teachers’ gestures be explained by the teacher’s perceived German proficiency of the learners?
  • Discussion and conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
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