Teacher's beliefs on teaching gestures and their correspondance with classroom performances

Abstract

During the last few decades, research has investigated the role of body language in human communication. However, when it comes to the teacherstudent interaction, little attention has been paid to the real function that teaching gestures have. For this reason, the present study assesses the beliefs that teachers have regarding their own body language in the classroom, and the effects that these gestures actually have. In this research study, five English teachers from a private school in Peñalolén in Santiago, Chile, were observed, video recorded and interviewed. Each participant was observed and later interviewed to find out their beliefs on the role and importance that teaching gestures play in the classroom. Each videotaped lesson was later contrasted with their beliefs to see if there existed a consistency between their beliefs and their practices. The study revealed that the essential orientation of teachers is to use gestures as explanatory devices for the most part; however, closer examination suggests that during performance, teachers use gestures for classroom control more frequently than for other purposes such as explanation, or evaluation. Four out of the five teachers that were interviewed inclined towards using teaching gesture to explain new vocabulary or grammar mainly, but they did not consider how important and frequent gestures were for classroom control or even evaluation. This case study, therefore, draws attention to the fact that even though English teachers hold strong beliefs about the importance of body language in the classroom, this is inconsistent with their performances. Assessment of the effects of these discrepancies is suggested for further studies to address.