‘Because of her gesture, it’s very easy to understand’ - Learners’ perceptions of 
teachers’ gestures in the foreign language class

INTRODUCTION
 “Language learning evolves out of learning how to carry on conversations” 
(Hatch, 1978:404)

Since Hatch suggested the possibility that learners contribute actively to the construction of classroom discourse, there have been calls in EFL research to re-conceptualize communication practices as co-constructed (Breen, 1996), mediated (Donato and McCormick, 1994; Lantolf, 2001) and situated in their social context (Breen, 1985, 2001). However, EFL researchers have been overwhelmingly preoccupied with the verbal aspects of language learning, and little attention has been given to gesture or any other form of nonverbal communication. 
Non-verbal behavior (NVB) has been the focus of several empirical studies that concentrated mostly on the amount and types of gestures used in the EFL classroom (Antes, 1996; Grant and Hennings, 1977; Kellerman, 1992). Other authors have also referred in passing to the compensatory role of gestures in teaching a foreign language, by providing ‘extralinguistic cues’ to elaborate the information (Krashen, 1981; Long, 1989) and to ‘mime’ as a way of “describing whole concepts nonverbally, or accompanying a verbal strategy with a visual illustration” (Dörney and Scott, 1997: 190). Lanzaraton (2004) examined the use of gestures in conjunction with speech by one EFL teacher in the teaching of vocabulary. She concluded that gestures were a fundamental aspect of the teacher’s pedagogical repertoire and played a crucial role in providing L2 learners with comprehensible input.
Although issues of cultural differences and the use of gestures as compensatory devices by language learners have been acknowledged, existing studies on gesture use in the language class have seldom been related to a coherent EFL learning theory. Lantolf (1994) proposed a sociocultural approach to studying second language learning. Drawing on Vygotsky’s work (1978, 1986), this approach focuses on the key role that social interaction plays in the processes of learning. Central to Vygotsky’s theory is the concept of the zone of proximal development (ZPD), which defines an individual’s immediate potential for cognitive achievement. According to Vygotsky, learning occurs in the ‘zone of proximal development’ defined as the dynamic space in which a student could perform a task with adult or peer guidance, a task that could not be achieved alone otherwise. Guidance is then a process of mediating learning and tuning it to a learner’s ZPD. Wertsch (1998), when discussing the ZPD, emphasized the importance of taking into account the context of the interaction when considering learning in the ZPD and cognitive development. The participants co-construct the interaction and the ZPD is a function of this co-construction.
In relation to gesture, McCafferty (2002) has investigated the role of gesture in creating zones of proximal development for L2 learning. In his analysis of a Taiwanese EFL learner speaking with a native speaker, he identified examples of gestural uses in the ZPD (use of gestures that become established lexical items, deictic gestures used to reference objects, imitation of gestures of the native speaker). He concludes that gestures may be used by both native speakers and learners as a self-organizing form of mediation and have the potential to transform the nature of teaching and learning, by creating a sense of shared space (social, symbolic, physical and mental) between the collocutors.
The present study investigates language learners’ perceptions of teachers’ gestures and other NVBs in the foreign language class. It addresses the following questions: Do learners in the language class perceive teachers’ gestures and other NVBs in the processes of learning? If so, what meanings and functions do they attribute to these behaviors? Are learners’ interpretations of certain gestures consistent, or do they differ and which factors affect these interpretations? 
These questions suggest an innovative approach in the field of gestural studies and give learners a more active role in the research process. Rather than impose meanings on speakers’ gestures independent of the conversation partner, it involves the addressees as active interpreters of the gestures that were constructed for them (in this case, by the teacher) and in the specific learning context in which the interaction took place. Speakers’ conversational gestures are targeted and tailored for the addressees in the manner that words are (Streeck, 1993; Bavelas, 1994) and the recipients participate as co-authors of gestures through a process of meaning attribution (Streeck, 1994). In this sense, learners as direct addressees of teachers’ NVBs appear to be in the best position to clarify the processes through which attributions are made, the nature of these attributions and thus further our understanding of the covert processes of language learning. 

STUDIES OF GESTURES IN THE EFL CLASS 
Some of the descriptive studies that focused on teachers’ and learners’ use of gestures in the EFL class have already been mentioned. Hauge (2000) investigated the use of emblems as highly regulated signs and identified the existence of EFL classroom specific emblems. She concluded that the occurrence of emblems in teachers’ gestural activity outnumbers the other types of gestures and teacher gesturing is adapted to the specific context of the classroom in the same manner that teacher talk is. 
Other studies examined the relationship between learners’ proficiency and the number of gestures used. Empirical studies suggest that the speakers’ moments of difficulty in expressing themselves in an EFL context are accompanied by an increase in the amount and frequency of gestures they use (Marcos, 1979; Kita, 1993; Nobe, 1993). Gullberg (1998) investigated the use of gestural and oral communication strategies by FL speakers of English and Swedish. Overall, learners used more frequently complementary than substitutive strategic gestures. Also, FL learners appeared to favor a combination of the two types of strategies - oral and gestural - more than L1 speakers did. Gullberg confirms the increased use of gestures in FL speakers on the whole and as communication strategies, acknowledging differences between individuals in the amount and types of gestures used. 
McCafferty (1998) suggests that although a tendency to an increased use of gestures in FL is confirmed, there might be certain social and individual factors that affect the production of gestures and these need to be taken into account. He found that Japanese learners of American English used an emblem that was not a Japanese gesture, a finding which indicates a process of gestural ‘acculturation’. 
A major shortcoming of research investigating gesture in EFL is the lack of studies that explore participants’ interpretation of gestures. Another relatively unexplored path (however, see Lanzaraton’s study cited above) is the relationship between learners’ learning as related to teachers’ gestural activity during class. Although the present study does not attempt to measure learning in any way, the relationship between teachers’ gestures and learners’ learning will be addressed from the learners’ own perspectives. 

THE STUDY
The purpose of this study was to investigate the attributions that learners in an EFL context made in relation to teachers’ gestures. Five classes of EFL taught in an academic summer school (two Lower Intermediate, two Upper Intermediate and one Advanced) were used for the data collection. One session in each class was videotaped (90 minutes/ session). The levels of proficiency at which students were placed were determined through a standardised Cambridge PET test (Preliminary English Test) taken by all students as part of their admission to the programme. This test consists of a Reading and Writing paper (90 minutes), a Listening task (approx. 35 minutes) and a Speaking test (10-12 minutes). All learners in the five classes were asked for permission to be videotaped and then invited to volunteer for an interview. While all gave permission for videotaping, only some volunteered for the interview. Table 1 details the summary of the classes videotaped and of the students interviewed. 
Teachers were all native speakers of English, and each had at least 8 years of EFL teaching and trainee mentoring experience. They were told that the project studied learners’ impressions of classroom communication; a deliberate generalization of the topic was necessary in order to reduce teachers’ self-awareness of NVB. No influences were made on teachers’ choice of topic, methods of teaching or class organization. The video camera was placed at the back of the class and focused on the teacher to best capture the teacher’s verbal and non-verbal activity. 

Table 1. Profile of videotaped classes and interviewed learners
Class code and
Gender
of teacher	Students present in class at the time of videotaping
(gender, nationality)	Type of class and level of proficiency
(as determined by PET entrance exam)	Profile of learners interviewed
(pseudonym, gender, age, country of origin)	
Class A

Female	5 males/ 4 females

Spanish (4), Italian (2), Japanese (2), Russian (1)	General English

Lower Intermediate	Marianne, F, 22, Spain
Jose, M, 26, Spain
Vladimir, M, 19, Russia
Laura, F, 31, Spain
Daniel, M, 30, Italy	
Class B

Female	4 males/ 6 females

Italian (3), Japanese (3), Spanish (2), Chinese (2)	General English

Upper Intermediate	Marcus, M, 26, Italy
Armand, M, 36, Italy
Eunice, F, 34, Spain
Ronaldo, M, 22, Spain	
Class C

Male	5 males/ 3 females

Japanese (3), Chinese (2), Spanish (1), Austrian (1), Iraqi (1)	Academic English

Advanced	Kali, F, 20, Japan
Nahiko, F, 19, Japan
Liang, M, 20, China
Reyno, M, 26, Japan
Theodor, M, 26, Austria	
Class D

Female	1 male/ 8 females

Japanese (9)	General English

Lower Intermediate	Kandar, M, 20, Japan
Mayumi, F, 20, Japan
Ayurda, F, 19, Japan
Narun, F, 19, Japan
Keiko, F, 20, Japan	
Class E

Male	2 males/ 3 females

Spanish (3), Italian (1), German (1)	General English

Upper Intermediate	Romeo, M, 26, Italy
Johan, M, 19, Germany
Silvia, F, 24, Spain	
TOTALS	17 males/ 24 females
videotaped	5 classes	13 males/ 9 females
interviewed	

One video extract was selected from each recording. These extracts generally lasted between 4-5 minutes each, and their selection was made on the following criteria:
1	Each extract should be a unitary sequence in itself, with a clear opening and ending of the interactional sequence, without creating any confusion about the content of speech or the wholeness of the sequence.
2	The types of interactions between teacher and learners should be identifiable as typical EFL teaching activities (e.g. explaining vocabulary items, giving instructions, exchanging opinions, discussion mediated by teacher etc.) 
3	The sequence should have the teacher in clear focus with clear accompanying sound, to avoid distractions due to technical problems.  
It was impossible to match the video extracts from all classes for the number and types of gestures produced, as teachers varied in their gestural styles, but this was not considered important, as the interpretations of gestures were sought rather than quantitative evaluations. Each extract contained, however, all categories of speech-gestures identified by McNeill (1992) and instances of four other non-verbal codes (facial expressions, eye contact, posture, paralanguage). McNeill’s four categories of speech-related gestures include the following.
1	Iconics – gestures that bear “a close formal relationship to the content of speech”;
2	Metaphorics – gestures similar to iconics in form, but their pictorial content illustrates an abstract idea rather than something concrete;
3	Beats – simple flicks of the hand or finger that mark what the speaker considers significant in their speech;
4	Deictics – or pointing gestures, which can be concrete (pointing to objects or events in real life) or abstract (pointing during narratives or conversations).
Each of the twenty-two learners who volunteered for the interviews was asked to watch the video extract corresponding to their own class and to discuss the teacher’s ‘body language’. The focus of the interview was further clarified, by explaining that although teacher’s speech should not be ignored, the study was interested in how learners perceived the teacher’s non-verbal behavior. Several learners used the phrase ‘body language’ to clarify the focus and this was accepted by the interviewer. Learners were asked to select the instances they thought were relevant by stopping the video tape and identifying the gesture/NVB they wanted to discuss, and minimal prompting was then provided to elicit comments. 
Introspective methods (stimulated recall, thinking aloud, retrospective reflection, self-observation, self-revelation) were used before to explore learners’ acquisition strategies and processes in an EFL context. Gass and Mackey (2000) offer a comprehensive review of studies that used stimulated recall as a method of eliciting information on processes such as learners’ and teachers’ classroom decision making, learning strategies, FL writing choices and processes of oral interaction in the FL class. The method relies on the assumption that a reminder of the class event will stimulate the individuals’ recall of the mental processes active at the moment of the event. Gass and Mackey advise that interviews should take place soon after the event as subjects’ recollection decreases in time and the stimuli used should be clear and strong, preferably in visual format. Also, participants should have minimal training in the method and should be allowed to initiate recalls with minimal prompting. These guidelines were followed closely in the study.
The interviews with the learners were audiotaped, transcribed and analysed qualitatively, looking for emergent themes through recursive comparative analysis. This involved a process of constantly testing and refining descriptive themes to take account of all data. Included in the analysis were the participants’ comments on all aspects of teachers’ NVB, even if these were not directly linked to a specified gesture or action. Similarly, comments on the classroom setting, the interpersonal relationships, the teacher’s teaching style or their peers’ behaviour in the class were considered. 

FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 
All learners considered teachers’ gestures as conveying meanings in certain contexts and as contributing to the process of classroom interaction. Learners’ interpretations seemed to be organized around the key moments of the language learning process. There were three sets of perceived functions identified by the learners in relation to teachers’ gestures and other non-verbal behaviors: cognitive, affective and organizational. The findings in relation to affective and organizational attributions were reported in greater detail elsewhere (Sime, 2006). 
The cognitive functions attributed to teachers’ gestures referred to gestures that were perceived as a) enhancing comprehension, b) facilitating processes of learning or c) indicating teacher’s reaction to learners’ output. The focus of the analysis is the interpretation that learners attributed to gestures in the interaction, especially when moves were perceived as providing scaffolded assistance within the ZPD.

Gestures that enhance comprehension
Some gestures were identified by the learners as enhancing comprehension of the teacher’s message either by illustrating words or ideas, emphasizing important words or marking contrasts and comparisons. In Class E, the teacher explains the transaction that takes place between a buyer and a seller and illustrates the idea gesturally. Concrete pointing (a deictic gesture) is combined with a container gesture, in which both hands are ‘holding’ metaphorically the concept discussed.
Figure 1. A combination of concrete pointing and metaphoric gestures
a 				b     
#5.49. I am selling my house		           #5.50. Manuelle comes (to buy my house)
Teacher points to himself, while		Teacher points to the student
hands are in a container gesture		who is given as an example of buyer.
to suggest the concept ‘house’.

All three learners interviewed from this class considered this gestural complex as a comprehension enhancer. Two of them explained that the complex of gestures clarifies the relationship between a buyer and a seller, while Johan added that: 
“It makes concrete an abstract situation and concrete things are always clearer. Pointing to himself means he is one character in the example, and his hands move to Manuelle to show that he gives her his house, like a transaction”.

In Class C, the teacher discusses the differences in temperatures between different parts of the world and makes a comparison between local temperatures in Britain and the ones at the Equator. In making the geographical distinction, he identifies two distinct loci in the gestural space (Figure 2).

Figure 2. Abstract deictics used to represent locations for concrete references
a 	b 		c 
#3.28. just like here	     	#3.29.the temperatures 	#3.30. they are going up
				in the Ecuador
T points at head level.	T points down, RH side. 	T points up, after an ascendant
                                          					gesture from down RH side.

Liang commented on teacher’s combination of gestures in the instance above and explained why using the gestural space to illustrate concrete references can clarify meanings:
“He said here [reproduces gesture a above], it means Britain, then he cannot use the same gesture for another country, so his hand goes down here [reproduced gesture b]. The hand means here temperatures and the places mean countries. When the hand goes up [reproduces gesture c], it means the temperatures are higher. Maybe you don’t know the word ‘increase’, but ‘going up’ is better and you see the move, so it’s clear that ‘increase’ means the same.”

Learners frequently noticed teachers pointing to a concrete space when talking about location.  Teachers would often say ‘here’ and simultaneously point to the floor or in the gestural space in front of them to identify the class, the university or the country they were referring to. In one instance, the teacher is seen to use an abstract pointing gesture in a ‘mixed syntax’ type of structure, i.e. a verbal sentence that ended with a gesture, as shown in Figure 3 below. The gesture becomes a lexical equivalent, which functions as a clue for the learners, who complete the sentence mentally.
Figure 3. Mixed syntax gesturing, pointing for location 

#2.106.  (but we are not learning American English here) we are learning (…)
Abstract deictic: Both index fingers point to the floor.

Students perceive the gesture as a clear substitute for the phrase ‘British English’:
Ronaldo: “This is clear, it means we are in Britain, not in America, so we learn British English. She points to mean the local language.”
Eunice: “She is suggesting that here [reproduces T’s gesture], in this country, we learn this type of English.” 

Although mainly descriptive, learners’ accounts indicate a clear understanding of the relationship between gesture and speech; they perceive them as co-constructing teacher’s discourse rather than fulfilling a communicative function in isolation. One of the students explains how the communicative value of a gesture differs for different individuals:
Marcus: “I know the meaning of the word ‘reflex’ so for me this [i.e. teacher’s gesture for ‘reflex’] is not an important movement, it confirms what I already know. But if I don’t know the word, this move could make me understand. So it is a matter of being a surplus or being useful, but this depends on what you know already. I know the word ‘reflex’, but another student might not know it. So what is for me a surplus, for him is very relevant because he doesn’t know the word and teacher’s moves help him understand.”
Learners considered that teachers represent visually the lexical items they anticipate as difficult for learners’ level of proficiency or as essential for understanding the whole discursive sequence. Learners’ explanations like “she knows this is a difficult word”, “he sees I am confused” or “this is an important word, so she needs to make sure we got it” when discussing gestures used in conjunction with words seem to indicate the belief that teachers seize the situations in which a supplementary way of expressing the same meaning may increase the chances of comprehension. Unlike other research findings that claim that speech-related gestures represent a relevant dimension mainly in speaker’s thought (McNeill, 1992), learners appear to believe that teachers adapt their gestural discursive practices to the students’ perceived level of understanding and that gestures are for the addressee’s main benefit rather than the speaker’s.
Teachers’ use of iconics, especially when discussing vocabulary items, was quite common. Learners saw these gestures as clarification moves and continued to comment on them in relation to the speech sequences in which they were embedded. For example, in Class B, the teacher uses the words ‘reflex’ and ‘copy’ (as a verb with the meaning of imitating an action) when discussing the process of learning a language, and she uses the same gesture of moving her arms backwards and forwards in both situations (Figure 4).
Figure 4. Identical illustrator used with two different lexical equivalents
a 				b 
like a reflex						and you try and copy 
Teacher counterbalances her hands back 	T’s hands kept very close to each 
and forth three times.	other, palms reversed up, hands move in counterbalance backwards and forwards.

Although used in different verbal contexts (gesture a- ‘learning is like a reflex’ and gesture b- ‘you hear a native speaker and you try and copy their accent’), learners did not appear to see any difficulties in interpreting these gestures for clarifying meanings in both situations. This is how Ronaldo explains the two gestures:
“She talks about the reflex you develop when learning, so she is moving her hands like this [reproduces gesture] to suggest the automatic character of learning. It makes it clearer.”

“When she says you try and copy what natives say, she does this movement [reproduces gesture] to suggest like an exchange. You are sharing something with the other people; here you are sharing the language or knowledge.”
This example shows the flexibility and the lack of standardized pattern of gestures as opposed to the standardized form of words in a sentence. More importantly, it indicates that learners are able to use gestures in conjunction with speech to decode meanings. Gestures become relevant in the immediate context in which they occur and learners use them either to confirm understandings of verbal equivalent or to guess meanings. This indicates developed learning strategies that language learners adapt either from their previous learning experience or from their experience of making sense of people’s gestures in other social situations. Although learners may not develop at the moment of perception analyses as complex as the ones elaborated during the interviews, they, nevertheless, seem to make ad-hoc decisions on the function of a gesture in direct relation to their learning needs. If meaning is not clear, then gestures can become clues. If meaning is clear, gestures can be used as confirmation checks or can just be ignored. While different teachers may use different gestures in relation to the same verbal input, this finding suggests that learners will rely on the immediate context to interpret gestural meanings.
Several learners pointed out the fact that certain gestures were used by the teachers with the purpose of emphasizing a key word or idea expressed verbally. Students seemed to hold the belief that, in certain circumstances, gestures have the role of highlighting the important elements in the teacher’s speech.
Liang: “Usually the teachers make gestures when they use a new word or say something important, which they want the students to notice.”
Reyno: “If he does a gesture, it means he says something important. He would not make gestures for ordinary words, unless it helps his speaking.”
One other belief expressed by the learners is that teachers would gesturally mark some words, almost consciously, in order to increase their saliency when they had increased relevance. Something that is ‘important’ may be a new word, an explanation of a concept, or an answer to a question. If learners perceive certain gestures as having the potential to enhance the saliency of certain linguistic elements, it implies the understanding that language and gesture are in close synchrony and pragmatic co-functioning (McNeill, 1992). Learners also indicated that gestures are useful not only for the viewer, but also for the speaker, with an implicit understanding that gestures may function as prompts for speaker’s line of thinking.
However, although teachers in this study were observed to use beats (i.e. gestures represented as up-and-down flicks of hand) to emphasize new words or ideas, beats were mostly unnoticed by the learners. When prompted, learners considered beats as ‘normal’ gestures, produced spontaneously, and without a specific function in discourse.  As beats are very quick gestures, it may be the case that learners do not have the time to become fully aware of them. 
Another function identified in relation to teachers’ gestures was that of marking comparisons and contrasting ideas or concepts by metaphorically separating them in the gestural space. When discussing a relationship of lexical antinomy or partial synonymy, teachers often used both hands in representing visually the concepts involved and the relationship between them. For example, in Class A, when explaining the difference between past and present, the teacher uses two successive metaphorical gestures. Initially, she draws an imaginary line in front of her with her left index finger, then locates on this axis the present tense (‘you are here, now’) by keeping both palms in front of her in a container gesture. Then she moves her hands to her far left side on the imaginary line to explain past tense (‘you are telling a story that happened in the past’). This gestural combination was considered as a clarification unit by the learners, who may have seen this in a previous class. Vladimir said:

“I did not use the correct tense, so she tried to make me imagine the difference between past and present by having this line of tenses. The present is close to you, the past is far away, and this line helps you understand that and remember it.”
Because the teacher feels that learners need a supplementary explanation, she continues the instance above with another gestural combination to classify the use of past tense, by telling the learners to imagine the stories in the past as finished and put in boxes on a shelf. She represents this visually by drawing two boxes with her index fingers towards her far left hand side, still on the imaginary time line. Marianne analyses the instance in the following words:
“She does like this [student draws two parallel squares with her index fingers] to suggest different events. Each story in the past has a box of its own. So if a story is put in a box, it’s finished, so you use past tense to explain it. Because of her action here, it’s very easy to understand past. A story in a box means past; a story still happening means present.”
In the two extracts above, which refer to the explanation of using the tense, Teacher A uses two different gestural combinations to suggest the difference between ‘past’ and ‘present’. There were, however, certain gestures which appeared as standard in teacher’s representations of past as they developed as emblems in the class context. For example, teachers appear to use gestures such as the waving of the hand(s) behind the shoulder, the lateral waving of one or both hands or the pointing with the index finger behind the shoulder to suggest a past action or the use of past tense. When a comparison between tenses was being made, teachers would use the gestural space to mark them in different locations (see Figure 5).
Figure 5. Abstract deictic gestures used to identify the use of past tense as opposed to the use of future tense
a			b    
#3.81. (and this) it always 		 	#3.82.and / this / this is to come next
refers to something beforehand   		
RH performs an arch in the air,		RH arm straight, points
going behind his left shoulder.		laterally on the right side.

Teachers’ use of gestures may depend on their individualized ways of processing the information. What is important is the impact that these gestures have on the learners. Learners in Class A interpreted two different gestures as clarifying the concept of ‘past’. The use of opposite places in the gestural space to distinguish between concepts or ideas occurred in all the teachers’ behavior. 
Although, in most of the cases, learners’ interpretations of a gesture were similar in meaning and the same function was attributed to the same gesture, there were several instances with slight differences in individuals’ understandings. Each learner highlighted the function of the gesture that was of importance for him/her at a given moment, but all retained the core meaning of a comparison between the two concepts. This individualization of the gestural meanings may reflect not only differences in learners’ definitions of a given situation, but also different learning needs. 

Gestures that facilitate processes of learning
In certain situations, teachers’ gestures were seen as orienting learners’ attention to relevant aspects of the task or interaction or to work as helpful aids in the memorisation of vocabulary items or grammar rules. Also, teachers would often use gestures in the absence of speech to give learners’ clues to meanings and thus facilitate learning. These contexts were seen by learners as creating conditions for the learning processes to take place and were valued by them.
When facilitating learning, teachers used mainly concrete deictics or pointing gestures to draw learners’ attention to a person speaking, an object or a task. When Teacher B points to Eunice with her arm stretched and her palm open, the other learners interpret the gesture as follows:
Ronaldo: “She is inviting people to pay attention to what Eunice says because she gave a good answer.”
Eunice: “She is driving everyone’s attention to me so that everyone pays attention, not to me as a person, but to what I was saying, as she thought what I was saying was important. It also made me feel right, as it means that my answer was good.”
For another learner in the class, Marcus, the gesture appears superfluous (“She said her name, there is no need to point to her”). This again indicates the independent character of the attributions that learners make to gestures in each situation. Similarly, when teachers pointed to the board or the book to orient learners’ attention, most learners found it useful (Nahiko: “It makes us understand where we are and what we are doing next. It keeps us focused”), while others thought that they did not require an external prompt to follow an activity.
In other situations, learners thought that the gestures teachers made during class had the potential to function as mnemonics and help them remember words or ideas expressed in conjunction with the gesture. Teacher A uses several gestures to illustrate the distinction between past and present, as discussed above. Laura explains how these gestures may function as both a clue to understanding meanings and a mnemonic aid:
“She showed little boxes to suggest that what happens in the past goes in a box on the shelf. So you can actually remember these boxes when thinking of an action and then you know to use the past tense.”
Marcus also finds teachers’ gestures helpful as memory aids:
“I watch her all the time, because I am the visual type, I remember things if I see them. So if she says a word like a body part or so, then she points to it. I will go home and remember her action, then probably remember the word.”
In some classes, teachers were observed to use gestures in the absence of speech to elicit words that students would know, but could not remember. It appears that teachers recognize situations when learners are puzzled or confused and the gestural clues become a part of the more general strategy of encouraging learners’ participation. In Class B, the teacher elicits the word ‘physical’ by flexing both her arms, with the fists clenched.  Ronaldo explains the instance:
“It seems like the word is on your tongue and you don’t remember it and the teacher knows you know that words. Here she does this [flexes muscles] to make us say the word ‘physical’. And you know what this move means and then you say the word, you remember.”
In this case, enacting meanings with the hands has the purpose of communicating and prompting learners to think of the verbal equivalent. It establishes intersubjectivity between the teacher and the class, where she appears aware of the learners’ level in terms of vocabulary understanding and adjusts the prompt accordingly to stimulate recollection. This lends support to the idea that teachers concretize the verbal element through gestures that are tuned at the learners’ ZPD and lead in subtle ways the learning efforts.

Gestures that provide feedback
A typical activity of classroom interaction is the teacher’s monitoring of learners’ input to the class interaction and then providing them with immediate feedback. There is an implicit agreement between teacher and learners that the teacher has more power in the interaction and has the authority to validate learners’ output. Teacher’s feedback has an important role in confirming learning hypotheses that learners make and also has an emotional value for learners. Certain NVBs that teachers adopted during the class were interpreted by learners as giving them an immediate feedback on the quality of their contribution to the interaction and thus supported learning.
There were three main functions that learners identified in relation to teachers’ gestures that contributed to feedback. Teachers were seen to agree and appreciate a speaker’s contribution to the interaction, to ask for clarifications, and, in some cases, to disagree with a student’s opinion. When teachers acknowledge their contribution to the class or validate answers through a smile or gesture, learners appear motivated and confident:
Ronaldo: “I was trying to guess an answer, so she pointed at me, like inviting the other people to pay attention to what I’m saying and also shows that what I said was right, because she is nodding. It made me feel good.”
Liang: “If you are right, he will look at you and do this [nods], but if you are wrong, he will never do this [shakes head], because this would make you feel like you are not a good student. If he does this [nods], you have a good feeling, you are happy. It means a correct answer.”
Although teachers often used complexes of NVBs to provide feedback (for example, pointing to a student, smiling and nodding after a good answer), students did not appear to have difficulties in decoding these complex messages. On the contrary, a developed sense of intersubjectivity seems to exist, where both learners and teacher share a common set of gestural meanings that are regularly deployed during interaction. This seems to facilitate communication and to give learners a sense of stability: they know what to expect after an answer and how to make sure that their input is right or valued. 
Finally, situations in which negative feedback was given involved recasting or rephrasing a learner’s words. Behaviors that were observed in direct relation to providing negative feedback were wagging of the index finger, raising the eyebrows, a puzzled face, crossed arms and avoidance of eye contact. In Class E, Romeo, an Italian student, expresses strong views on supporting the Mafia. The teacher appears to disagree with him, first verbally (“I don’t think you can generalize”) and then non-verbally. When listening to Romeo’s comments, the teacher initially has his arms crossed, nods rapidly and then puts one, then both palms in Romeo’s direction in a ‘stop’ gesture ( Figure 6).

Figure 6. Emblem gestures indicating disagreement with a student’s ideas
a  b 	
Learners in class sense the tension and explain the teacher’s behavior accordingly:
Johan: “Romeo is a bit annoying for everybody in the class, including the teacher. He is very loud, and often the teacher has to stop him, but he wants to continue. The teacher’s face shows anger and stress, and then, when he can’t stop him, he puts both palms in the air and turns around, almost like ignoring Romeo.”
Sylvia: “It’s clear that the teacher wanted to move on, and Romeo wanted to talk more. So he stopped him with his hands, like pushing his words away.”
Romeo himself interprets the incident as follows:
“I saw his hands, and I knew what he meant. He wanted me to stop, and he didn’t like my ideas about Mafia, and I was frustrated because I couldn’t finish. I know that because I’m Italian I am loud and I do many gestures, but this is how I am. I can’t change.”
The cases discussed so far illustrate the role that learners attribute to teachers’ gestures and other NVBs in providing or signaling feedback. The instances of disagreement and explicit correction observed were fairly rare, which may suggest that teachers try and support learners’ output rather than inhibit it through persistent correcting. They tended to use more appreciative gestures that encouraged learners to speak and contribute to the lesson. 

CONCLUSION 
This study provides evidence that learners attribute cognitive functions to certain speech-related gestures from teachers’ classroom discourse. Learners valued teachers’ gestures for their contribution to the processes of learning and classroom interaction. They made immediate, seemingly ad-hoc selections of ‘relevant’ gestures and offered decisions on the functions that these behaviors fulfilled in the interaction. These findings complement previous studies that showed how participants in a conversation both attend and fail to attend to each other’s actions, by drawing a distinction between relevant and irrelevant gestures (Goodwin, 1980; Kendon, 1976). 
How do learners decide if a gesture is or is not relevant? The findings from this study seem to indicate that learners tend to prioritize the interpretation of a gesture and attend to it when it affects, directly or indirectly, their learning. A plausible explanation for the fact that learners attribute functional values to gestures relates to learners’ own definition of the social context in which the events occur. Learners know that their presence in the class is justified mainly by their need or intentions to learn (Ellis, 2001). This interpretation of the context and its influence on the aims of the interaction appears to frame the interpretation and selection of relevant gestures. 
Findings suggest that learners in classrooms focus on those gestural events of teachers that express properties of the referent that are ambiguous in speech or of which they are not certain, due to their linguistic level. As speech-related gestures are pragmatically and semantically co-expressive with speech (McNeill, 1992), it is reasonable to find that learners perceive this relationship accordingly and rely on both channels in understanding. Gestures seem to function then as symbolic tools of mediation and learners actively engage in a process of meaning-making, especially when the teacher input is within their ZPD. 
Students develop, thus, learning strategies that allow them to follow the interaction by using both channels of communication, verbal and non-verbal. In other instances, when the lexical equivalent of a gesture was incomprehensible or when gestures were produced in the immediate absence of speech (emblems, mime), nonverbal forms became the only available source for continuing the interaction. In some circumstances, the context made learners more aware of the gestural clues. For example, when teachers would explain vocabulary, learners seemed to classify the situation as potentially ‘difficult’ and ‘important’ and became more alert to teachers’ gestures. 
Teachers’ gestures were also found useful in supporting other mental processes, such as attention and memorization. These are cognitive processes that facilitate learning, and gestures that are involved in stimulating them are often classroom specific. Similarly, when providing feedback, teachers often use emblems and facial expressions that may appear as unimportant to an outsider. Learners, nevertheless, suggested that teachers’ non-verbal reactions to their answers have a cognitive impact, in the sense that a validation coming from the teacher confirms learning hypotheses. Learners often learn what teachers approve of as correct and important.
When the same teacher’s gesture was selected by different learners, interpretations were most of the times similar in terms of gestural function and meaning. Agreements between learners when discussing functions and meanings of emblems and deictics were more frequent than for other groups of gestures. The explanation may lie in the fact that these behaviors are learnt with their socially regulated conventions of physical form and established meanings, even outside the classroom. It seems that although learners differ in their language learning beliefs and strategies (Bialystok, 1981; Oxford, 1990), they share some strategies of gestural meaning-making. These shared strategies are even more prevalent when it comes to gestures used in direct relationship with language learning processes, being thus special attributes of classroom interaction. 
Some of the strategies that learners use in interpreting teachers’ gestures, as emerging from the explanations participant learners gave, are as follows: making the analogy with the meaning of the gesture outside the class, relating the meaning of the gesture with the speech context in which the gesture occurs, using prior situations in which the gesture occurred as a reference for interpretation, or locating the gesture in relation to other simultaneous NVBs. It may be the case that learners learn not only the language taught by the teacher, but also learn how to make sense of the unspoken ‘language’ of their teachers’ gestures. A class develops, thus, as a group that shares principles of interpreting each other’s words and actions. Therefore, it is reasonable to assume that teachers’ behavior becomes subjected to a constant process of evaluation and meaning-making according to some group co-constructed rules and conventions.
However, differences may arise between the numbers of NVBs each learner selects as relevant for his/her own learning purposes and, in certain circumstances, between the meanings and functions that learners attribute to the same act of behavior observed. This finding does not contradict the previous observation on common interpretations of gestures, but it rather complements it. While shared meanings of speech and gesture confer the class interaction with stability and predictability, a certain degree of flexibility and variation is an inherent property of learner attention and understanding. As class interactions are never predictable in their entirety, neither are learners’ processes of perceptive selection and gestural meaning making. One possible explanation for these differences is the fact that learners have different learning needs and previous experiences that influence their perceptions at any given moment. A gesture that clarifies the meaning of a word for a student at a lower level of proficiency may become a confirmatory gesture for a more proficient student or a superfluous move for a very advanced speaker. Gestures used in relationship with the content of teaching offer a degree of variation in the meanings and functions that can be attributed to them. Learners appear to be aware of that and use teachers’ gestural input in accordance to their learning needs. 
There were few instances where cross-cultural differences in interpreting certain gestures came into discussion in the present study. However, when these instances occurred, learners seemed to rely on their knowledge about cultural differences in using certain gestures and more on their knowledge about the target culture than on their own cultural background. It seems that as part of their process of language learning in a Western environment, learners also develop a set of beliefs about native speakers’ use of gestures. Learners also assumed that teachers are well-intentioned and would not deliberately offend learners by using inappropriate gestures. In one class, a teacher’s gesture was interpreted by the Japanese learners as potentially offensive in their culture, but they quickly gave the teacher the benefit of cultural unawareness and tried to identify alternative possible meanings of the gesture. Being able to seek alternative interpretations at any given moment is a learning strategy adopted by most FL learners. This seems to be a survival mechanism much needed especially by learners at lower levels of proficiency when the potential for confusions and misunderstandings is higher. 
To conclude, these findings indicate an impressive level of awareness on learners’ part of teachers’ gestures and other NVBs and the development of certain learning strategies in using teachers’ gestures in the processes of learning. From a pedagogical perspective, this may mean that learners may benefit from explicit training in learning to use teachers’ gestures to comprehend their messages or to get more accustomed to the target culture. The findings also have implications for teacher training as teachers may reconsider their class behavior and think of ways of enhancing the communicative potential of their gestural communication. In this sense, reflecting on practice through stimulated recalls of videotaped classrooms as well as formal training in NVB and its social impact may provide useful tools for teaching. A more holistic view of classroom discourse as being verbal and nonverbal appears to have the potential to enhance learners’ participation and to benefit learning.

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