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