The Role of Gesture in Bilingual Education: Does Gesture Enhance Learning?

Autor/inn/en	Church, Ruth Breckinridge; Ayman-Nolley, Saba; Mahootian, Shahrzad
Titel	The Role of Gesture in Bilingual Education: Does Gesture Enhance Learning?
Quelle	In: International Journal of Bilingual Education & Bilingualism, 7 (2004) 4, S.303-319 (17 Seiten)Infoseite zur Zeitschrift PDF als Volltext Verfügbarkeit
Sprache	englisch
Dokumenttyp	gedruckt; online; Zeitschriftenaufsatz
ISSN	1367-0050
Schlagwörter	Grade 1; Speech Instruction; Spanish Speaking; Bilingual Education; Nonverbal Communication; English (Second Language); Mathematics Instruction; Teaching Methods + Suchen Sie Ihr Suchwort? School year 01; 1. Schuljahr; Schuljahr 01; Speech training; Sprechübung; Bilingual teaching; Bilingualer Unterricht; Non-verbal communication; Nonverbale Kommunikation; English as second language; English; Second Language; Englisch als Zweitsprache; Mathematics lessons; Mathematikunterricht; Teaching method; Lehrmethode; Unterrichtsmethode
Abstract	Studies investigating the role gesture plays in communication claim gesture has a minimal role, while others claim that gesture carries a large communicative load. In these studies, however, the role of gesture has been assessed in a context where speech is understood and could easily carry the entire communicative burden. We examine the role of gesture when speech is inaccessible to the listener. We investigated a population of children who, by their circumstances, are exposed to a language that is not accessible to them: Spanish-speaking students in an English-speaking school. Fifty-one first grade English-speaking students and Spanish-speaking students were tested. Half of the English-speaking and half of Spanish-speaking students viewed a "speech only" math instructional tape (i.e., instruction was not accompanied by gesture), while the other half of the English-speaking and Spanish-speaking students viewed a "speech and gesture" instructional tape. We found that learning increased two-fold for all students when gesture accompanied speech instruction, increasing Spanish-speaking learning from 0% to 50%. We speculate that gesture improved learning for Spanish-speaking children because gestural representation is not tied to a particular language. Rather, gesture reflects concepts in the form of universal representations. Implications for the communicative function of gesture are discussed. (Author).
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Update	2017/4/10