Corrective feedback, gesture, and mediation in classroom language learning
Issue: Vol 1 No. 1 (2014)
Journal: Language and Sociocultural Theory
Subject Areas: Writing and Composition Linguistics
DOI: 10.1558/71056194384
Abstract:
This article examines the way in which a teacher’s provision of form-focused corrective feedback synchronized with gesture mediated a student’s learning in an ESL reading classroom. Specifically, the focus of the analysis is on the student’s appropriation of the teacher’s gesture as a tool that mediates his own independent functioning. It is argued that while the teacher’s corrective feedback in the verbal channel helped to scaffold the learner’s performance by modeling a correct syntactic structure and highlighting the specific locus of the correction, it was her gesture activity that became available to the student as a psychological tool. The discussion centers on the role of gesture in mediating second language development. Implications for future research and classroom language teaching are also sketched out.
Author: Rémi Adam van Compernolle, Tetyana Smotrova
References :
Ableeva, R. (2010) Dynamic Assessment of Listening Comprehension in Second Language Learning. Unpublished PhD thesis, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA.
Aljaafreh, A. and Lantolf, J. P. (1994) Negative feedback as regulation and second language learning in the zone of proximal development. Modern Language Journal 78 (4): 465–483. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-4781.1994.tb02064.x
Allen, L. Q. (1995) The effect of emblematic gestures on the development and access of mental representations of French expressions. Modern Language Journal 79 (4): 521–529. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-4781.1995.tb05454.x
Davies, M. (2006) Paralinguistic focus on form. TESOL Quarterly 40 (4): 841–855. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/40264316
Davin, K. J. (2013) Integration of dynamic assessment and instructional conversations to promote development and improve assessment in the language classroom. Language Teaching Research 17 (3): 303–322. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1362168813482934
Erlam, R., Ellis, R. and Batstone, B. (2013) Oral corrective feedback on L2 writing: Two approaches compared. System 41 (2): 257–268. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.system.2013.03.004
Faraco, M. and Kida, T. (2008) Gesture and the negotiation of meaning in a second language classroom. In S. G. McCafferty and G. Stam (eds), Gesture: Second Language Acquisition and Classroom Research, 280–297. London: Routledge.
Gass, S. and Mackey, A. (2006) Input, interaction and output: An overview. AILA Review 19: 3–17. http://dx.doi.org/10.1075/aila.19.03gas
Goldin-Meadow, S. (2010) When gesture does and does not promote learning. Language and Cognition 2 (1): 1–19. http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/langcog.2010.001
Hall, J. K. (2007) Redressing the roles of correction and repair in research on second and foreign language learning. Modern Language Journal 91 (4): 511–526. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-4781.2007.00619.x
Hellermann, J. (2003) The interactive work of prosody in the IRF exchange: Teacher repetition in feedback moves. Language in Society 32 (1): 79–104. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0047404503321049
Kendon, A. (2004). Gesture: Visible Action as Utterance. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Kita, S. (2000). How representational gestures help speaking. In D. McNeill (ed.), Language and Gesture, 162–185. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Lantolf, J. P. (2010) Minding your hands: The function of gesture in L2 learning. In B. Batstone (ed.), Sociocognitive Perspectives on Language Use and Language Learning, 130–146. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Lantolf, J. P. and Poehner, M. E. (2013) Bringing the ZPD into the equation: Capturing L2 development during computerized dynamic assessment (C-DA). Language Teaching Research, 17 (3): 323–342. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1362168813482935
Lantolf, J. P. and Thorne, S. L. (2006). Sociocultural Theory and the Genesis of Second Language Development. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Lazaraton, A. (2004) Gesture and speech in the vocabulary explanations of one ESL teacher: A microanalytic inquiry. Language Learning 54 (1): 79–117. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9922.2004.00249.x
Lempert, M. (2011) Barack Obama, being sharp: Indexical order in the pragmatics of precision-grip gesture. Gesture, 11 (3): 241–270. http://dx.doi.org/10.1075/gest.11.3.01lem
McCafferty, S. G. (2004) Space for cognition: Gesture and second language learning. International Journal of Applied Linguistics 14 (1): 148–165. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1473-4192.2004.0057m.x
McCafferty, M. and Stam, G. (eds) (2008) Gesture: Second Language Acquisition and Classroom Research. New York: Routledge.
McNeill, D. (1992) Hand and Mind. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
McNeill, D. (2005) Gesture and Thought. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. http://dx.doi.org/10.7208/chicago/9780226514642.001.0001
Morett, L. M., Gibbs, R. W. and MacWhinney, B. (in press). The role of gesture in second language word learning: Acquisition, communication, and retention. In N. Miyake, D. Peebles and R. Cooper (eds), Proceedings of the 34th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society.
Morris, D. (1977) Manwatching: A Field Guide to Human Behaviour. New York: Harry N. Abrams.
Nakatsukasa, K. (unpublished) Use of Gesture in Corrective Feedback in L2 Classroom. Unpublished manuscript. Michigan State University, East Lansing.
Nassaji, H. and Swain, M. (2000) A Vygotskian perspective on corrective feedback in L2: The effect of random versus negotiated help on the learning of English articles. Language Awareness 9 (1): 34–51. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09658410008667135
Poehner, M. E. (2008) Dynamic Assessment: A Vygotskian Approach to Understanding and Promoting Second Language Development. Berlin: Springer Publishing.
Schegloff, E. A. (1987) Analyzing single episodes of interaction: An exercise in conversation analysis. Social Psychology Quarterly 50 (2): 101–114. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/2786745
Smotrova, T. (2012) ‘Chin Goes Down, Voice Goes Up’: Gesture in Teaching L2 Pronunciation. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Second Language Research Forum, October. Pittsburgh, PA.
Smotrova, T. (in progress) Instructional Functions of Speech and Gesture in the L2 Classroom. Unpublished PhD thesis, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA.
Smotrova, T. and Lantolf, J. P. (2013) The function of gesture in lexically focused L2 instruction conversations. Modern Language Journal 97 (2): 397–416. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-4781.2013.12008.x
Tellier, M. (2008) The effect of gestures on second language memorization by young children. Gesture 8 (2): 219–235. http://dx.doi.org/10.1075/gest.8.2.06tel
van Compernolle, R. A. (2010) Incidental microgenetic development in second-language teacher-learner talk-in-interaction. Classroom Discourse 1 (1): 66–81. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/19463011003750608
van Compernolle, R. A. (2012) Demonstrating L2 Vocabulary: Languabodily Activity in One ESL Teacher’s Unplanned Vocabulary Explanations. Boston, MA: American Association for Applied Linguistics.
van Compernolle, R. A. and Williams, L. (2011) Thinking with your hands: Speech-gesture activity during an L2 awareness-raising task. Language Awareness 20 (3): 203–219. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09658416.2011.559244
van Compernolle, R. A. and Williams, L. (2012) Promoting sociolinguistic competence in the classroom Zone of Proximal Development. Language Teaching Research 16 (1): 39–60. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1362168811423340
van Compernolle, R. A. and Williams, L. (2013) Group dynamics in the language classroom: Embodied participation as active reception in the collective ZPD. Classroom Discourse 4 (1): 42–62. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/19463014.2013.779284
Vygotsky, L. S. (1978) Mind in Society: The Development of Higher Mental Processes. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Vygotsky, L. S. (1986) Thought and Language. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Wertsch, J. V. (1998) Mind as Action. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Zhao, J. (2007) Metaphors and Gestures for Abstract Concepts in Academic English Writing. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, The University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ.