Nonverbal Gestures Annotated Bibliography

Sime, D. (2006). What do learners make of teachers' gestures in the language classroom? IRAL: International Review of Applied Linguistics in Language Teaching, 44(2), 211-230.

The purpose of this article was to look at what kinds of meanings English as a Foreign Language (EFL) students perceived when a teacher used a gesture in the classroom. The author of this article expected that the students would be able to identify and interpret some of the nonverbal gestures signaled. Participants were 22 adults (13 males and 9 females), with ages ranging from 19-34 years old. The participants were all students in a three-week summer course at a university, and participation was voluntary.

Five different EFL classes were videotaped for 90 minutes each. The author of this study extracted 5 minutes from each of the different videos. The participants were then asked to watch the videos and focus on the teacher's body actions rather than what was being said, and to take note of the actions that were "important."

The results found that the students took note of a total of 408 significant incidents of action, with an average of 18.5 per participant. The participants noted the gestures in different categories, such as "the teacher was giving clues" or "the teacher was manipulating speech turns." The participants considered the gestures as important and thought that each gesture conveyed meaning in a certain context. The comments that the participants made often referred to gestures that were made in direct relationship to the content of the teacher's verbal speech. The results illustrated that EFL students pay attention and give importance to their teachers' gestures, which helps influence their process of learning a new language.