Recall, in Chapter 4, it was stated that facilitating learners’ emotional- cognitive processes in noticing, ordering, representing, and remembering semiotic resources specific to their contexts of interaction are resources used by others, typically more experienced participants, to call attention to the relevant resources and assist learners in noticing and remembering them (Ellis & Larsen-Freeman, 2006; Tomasello, 2003, 2008). A term used to refer to the actions by which such work is accomplished is mediation. The specific resources that are used to mediate learners’ involvement in their contexts of interaction are tied, at the meso level of social activity, to particular sociocultural groups, such as families, friends, neighborhoods, and particular social institutions such as schools, places of work, recreational clubs, and so on. The process by which learning is mediated in these varied contexts is referred to as language socialization. In this chapter, we examine the concept of language socialization and what research has shown about L2 socialization, and we take a closer look at understandings of L2 learning as mediated and embodied.
A great deal of empirical support on the links between the sociocultural institutions within which contexts of interaction are situated and the development of learners’ repertoires comes from the field of study known as language socialization. The genesis of this field is credited to two renowned linguistic anthropologists, Elinor Ochs and Bambi Schieffelin (Ochs, 1988; Ochs & Schieffelin, 1984, 2008; Schieffelin & Ochs, 1986), who undertook research on language development among children in several different cultural communities. This research has its roots in the work of Dell Hymes (1962, 1964), also a distinguished linguistic anthropologist, who, in the 1960s, proposed a theory of language that posited social function to be the source from which linguistic units are formed (see Chapter 2). Hymes called his theory of language a socially constituted linguistics and explained that the term “socially constituted” expresses the view that “social function gives form to the ways in which linguistic features are encountered in actual life” (Hymes, 1974, p. 196).
Hymes’ theory foreshadows current usage-based understandings of the inextricable relationship between linguistic form and social function. And, while Hymes’ own research did not specifically address the issue of language development, it informed large programs of research on the cross-cultural study of the development of children’s language that began in the late 1960s and continued steadily through the 1970s and well into the 1980s (e.g., Ervin-Tripp & Mitchell-Kernan, 1977; Heath, 1983; Slobin, 1967, 1985). This program included studies by Ochs and Schieffelin on the language development of children in Western Samoan and Kaluli communities (Ochs, 1988; Ochs & Schieffelin, 1984, 2008; Schieffelin & Ochs, 1986). Their studies revealed empirical links between community beliefs about language use, the language activities in which caregivers and children regularly engaged, and the specific kinds of linguistic resources children eventually acquired. Ochs and Schieffelin concluded that in their activities with caregivers, children were not only being socialized into particular ways of using and interpreting linguistic resources for making meaning. At the same time, they were being socialized into local understandings on the appropriateness of the resources and their value for self- and other-expression. The findings from this program of research formed the basis of the language socialization approach.
A key premise of this approach is that the process of language development is embedded in and constitutive of the process of becoming socialized into competent participation in the social activities of one’s social groups by more knowledgeable members (Ochs & Schieffelin, 2017). More knowledgeable members can include parents, siblings and other family members, other caregivers outside of the family, and peers. The social activities that novices are socialized into are culturally-mediated, conventionalized activities that are important to the accomplishment of the daily lives of their social groups. For young children, daily activities typically include those occurring at home, for example, during meal times and play times, and during bedtime routines that may include recounting the day’s events, reading books, and saying prayers. For older children and adults, activities include those typically found in schools, places of worship, community center programs, and so on (Baquedano-Lopez & Kattan, 2008).
Novices are socialized into their activities and the semiotic resources used to accomplish the activities through more experienced members’ regular, extended use of the resources and their guided assistance in helping novices to use the resources on their own. In other words, they are socialized through language to use language. It is not only what is encoded in language forms, but more importantly, how meaning is constructed in social action that shapes development (Hall, 2011). With time and experience in their activities, novices become adept at using the semiotic resources for making meaning on their own.
In the processes of socialization, the development of language is intertwined with the development of social and cultural knowledge. Ochs (1996, p. 409) explains:
the two processes are intertwined from the moment a human being enters society (at birth, in the womb, or at whatever point local philosophy defines as ‘entering society’). Each process facilitates the other as children and other novices come to a perspective on social life in part through signs and come to understand signs in part through social experience.
Through experts’ regular, extended use of language and other semiotic resources novices become adept at using and knowing the semiotic resources and their cultural meanings specific to the social activities of their social groups. As discussed in Chapter 4, factors that are key to focusing novices’ attention on relevant resources are cues used by more expert participants that call the novices’ attention to them. Such assistance can take many forms and includes the use of verbal and nonverbal actions that explicitly direct learners’ attention to the semiotic resources and their meaning-making potentials, and other less explicit actions including repetitions, recyclings, and recasts of one another’s words; tone, intonation, and pitch changes; eye gaze and gesture; and so on. These forms of assistance are considered mediational means and the process by which they are used in interaction is mediation. We discuss these terms in more detail below.
As children and other novices are socialized into the semiotic resources of their social activities, they also develop understandings of the range of social actions by which the activities are accomplished and of the kinds of social identities and roles, and relationships with others that the activities make possible. They also develop understandings of the expected abilities and responsibilities that are considered characteristic of their identities and role relationships, and the options available to them for using the resources to take action. More generally, they develop understandings about the sociocultural importance of the activities to their social groups. In the process of being socialized, learners are not passive recipients. As individual agents, they play an active role in that they have the capacity to embrace, resist, and transform the social worlds into which they are socialized (Ochs, 1996; Ochs & Schieffelin, 2008, 2017). The topic of individual agency is discussed in more detail in Chapter 7.
While much of the early research was concerned with the socialization of children and adolescents, as Ochs and Schieffelin (2008) make clear, the process is not limited to early childhood but rather is a lifespan experience. It “characterizes our human interactions throughout adulthood as we become socialized into novel activities, identities and objects relevant to work, family, recreation civic, religious, and other environments in increasingly globalized communities” (ibid.: 11).
A core concept of the language socialization approach is indexicality. Indexicality refers to the phenomenon whereby real-world uses of semiotic resources index or invoke particular meanings depending on their contexts of use (Hanks, 1999; Ochs, 1996). As discussed in Chapter 3, meanings of resources are not created anew every time they are used. Rather, they come to us with meanings already embedded within them, with meanings that have developed from their past uses by particular individuals in particular contexts for particular purposes, which, in turn, are shaped by diverse cultural, historical, and institutional forces.
Dimensions of meaning embedded in our semiotic resources include the social acts and contexts of use the resources typically invoke and the social identities of the participants involved in uses of the resources. Identities encompass all dimensions of social personhood including social groups, roles, and relationships. Also embedded in our resources are particular affective and epistemic stances toward the acts, contexts, and identities invoked by their uses, and larger institutional values about their uses. Affective stance refers to feelings, dispositions, and degrees of emotional intensity. Epistemic stance concerns degrees of certainty of one’s knowledge and beliefs. Uses of our semiotic resources at any moment index or point to those meanings and the contexts of past use that are conventionally associated them (Ochs & Schieffelin, 2017).
Take the example of the English clause “how are you”. For many social groups, it is a typical greeting, offered in more formal social or professional settings such as workplace celebrations, conferences, meetings, and job interviews, where a greeting is expected to occur, such as when two people first come into contact with each other. It also signals possible identities of the participants as adults, or, at least, not as children, who may or may not know each other and a formal stance, i.e., attitude, taken by the participants toward each other and their context of action. The meanings change when the constructions “hey, man” or “yo” are used. These constructions can also be typical greetings, but they index different types of contexts, more informal settings, and different identities of and relationships between the participants, likely young adults.
As another example of indexicality, consider the English expression “raise your hands”. For many, it invokes the context of a classroom and the unequal role relationship that typically obtains between teachers and students, in which teachers have the authority to issue such a directive to students to manage how they bid for turns in their instructional activity. It is rarely used outside that context except, perhaps, to index a stance of humor, irony, or even repression toward someone or a situation. For example, its use in a meeting of peers serves to evoke the classroom context and a teacher-student relationship between the person issuing the directive and the rest of the members of the meeting. It may be that the person issuing the directive means to create a hierarchical relationship with his peers and thereby to index a repressive stance toward them. Alternatively, the person may be using it to index a humorous stance toward the fact that no one at the meeting is talking or that several people are overlapping their turns in a bid for the floor. In either case, its use indexes its contexts of past use and social identities and role relationships of those who are conventionally associated with it.
The process of invoking meaning is what Ochs refers to as linguistic indexing, and the cues used in the process are called linguistic indexes or indexicals. These cues “either alone or in sets, either directly or indirectly, and either retrospectively, prospectively or currently, establish contexts and as such are powerful socializing structures” (Ochs, 1988 p. 227). Understanding the semiotic resources of one’s contexts of action necessarily involves understanding their conventional social meanings, that is, their indexical potentials. Likewise, understanding social order involves knowing how such order is instantiated, that is, knowing which resources to use to point to and make relevant particular aspects of one’s sociocultural worlds such as relevant social identities and role relationships. Central to the process of individual socialization, then, is learning to connect the semiotic resources used in one’s social activities to their indexical meanings.
Socialization is not, however, a uni-directional process, from experienced members to novices. Novices are active contributors. While our resources are “socio-historical product[s]” (Ochs, 1996, p. 416), they are also tools for transforming social order. As Ochs explains in Quote 5.1, a key focus of research on language socialization has been on the identification of semiotic resources and the sociocultural meanings that are indexed in their uses by which novices are socialized into their social groups and, more generally, their social worlds.
L2 socialization is based on the same principles as L1 socialization. What adds complexity is the fact that adolescents and adults who are being socialized into their L2 social worlds come already possessing diverse repertoires of semiotic resources, cultural traditions, and community affiliations (Duff, 2007, 2011). In addition, they bring different motivations and aspirations for learning another language. For example, some may move to another region or country to seek better jobs or educational opportunities, bringing with them social, financial, and other resources they acquired from past experiences. Others may come with limited resources, having fled conflict in their own countries. Their different motives may lead to differential access to opportunities for socialization into the social activities of their new communities, with some facing limited or even nonexistent opportunities while others are welcomed and given full access to L2 learning opportunities and support in the processes of socialization.
Quote 5.1 Semiotic Resources as Tools of Reproduction and Transformation
While language is a socio-historical product, language is also an instrument for forming and transforming social order. Interlocutors actively use language as a semiotic tool (Vygotsky, 1978) to either reproduce social forms and meanings or produce novel ones. In reproducing historically accomplished structures, interlocutors may use conventional forms in conventional ways to constitute the local social situation. For example, they may use a conventional form in a conventional way to call into play a particular gender identity. In other cases, interlocutors may bring novel forms to this end or use existing forms in innovative ways. In both cases, interlocutors wield language to (re)constitute their interlocutory environment. Every social interaction in this sense has the potential for both cultural persistence and change, and past and future are manifest in the interactional present.
Ochs (1996, p. 416)
The processes of socialization in formal learning contexts such as those in schools and in adult and community programs further complicate the processes of socialization by the fact that groups of learners in these places are typically heterogeneous in age, education background, linguistic background, work experiences, and country of origin. Socialization under such conditions often leads not to the reproduction of L2 cultural and communicative practices but, instead, can take many paths. It can lead to the creation of hybrid practices, identities, and values, to incomplete or partial appropriation of the L2, or to rejection of target norms and practices (Duff, 2007, 2008; Duff & May, 2017). Much L2 socialization research has addressed these issues in relation to L2 schooling contexts. This topic is taken up in Chapter 8.
Complementing the language socialization approach to the study of language development is the work of Michael Halliday (1973, 1993). A world-renowned linguist, Halliday developed a language-based theory of learning that was based in large part on data he gathered from his own child during the period covering the child’s growth from nine to 18 months. A key premise of his theory is that learning is a semiotic process of learning how to make meaning, with language being “the prototypical form of human semiotic” (1993, p. 93).
Like the language socialization approach, Halliday’s theory considers language and culture learning to be mutually constitutive. Language is considered to be the quintessential semiotic resource that enables its users to learn the knowledge, practices, beliefs, and values of their culture. Halliday (1978, p. 9) explains:
Language is the main channel through which the patterns of living are transmitted to him, through which he learns to act as a member of a ‘society’ – in and through the various social groups, the family, the neighbourhood, and so on – and to adopt its ‘culture’, its modes of thought and action, its beliefs and its values.
Based on his theory of language, Halliday developed an approach to the study of language use called systemic functional linguistics. The framework is systemic in that it considers language to be a network of interrelated systems of semiotic potentials. It is functional in that it seeks to account for the semiotic meanings of the forms used in particular contexts and to link these meanings to larger social structures. The purpose of such a framework is to understand the different purposes for which language forms are used within and across textual contexts, and “why a text means what it does, and why it is valued at it is” (Halliday, 1994: xxix). Halliday’s work has informed a great deal of educational research that is based on the premise that language learning in schools is about “learning how to mean in new and different ways” (Byrnes, 2008, p. 6).
James Martin and his colleagues (e.g., Christie, 2008; Christie & Martin, 2007; Martin, 2006, 2009) have applied the framework of systemic functional linguistics to the development of the concept of genre, defining it as “a socially sanctioned means of constructing and negotiating meanings” (Christie, 2008, p. 29). The framework, together with the concept of genre, have been applied to the development of a genre-based pedagogy for reading and writing whose aim is to develop in learners a level of literacy that includes learner awareness of the meaning-making consequences of different linguistic resources as they are used in different subject matters. Matthiessen (2009), in Quote 5.2, explains the significance of language learning to learning how to mean.
Quote 5.2 Learning How to Mean
When people learn languages, they build up their own personalized meaning potentials as part of the collective meaning potential that constitutes the language, and they build up these personal potentials by gradually expanding their own registerial repertoires—their own shares in the collective meaning potential. As they expand their own registerial repertoires, they can take on roles in a growing range of contexts, becoming semiotically more empowered and versatile.
Matthiessen (2009, p. 223)
The theory of human development advanced by Lev S. Vygotsky, a Soviet psychologist, also considers socialization to be key to language development. A central premise of Vygotsky’s (1981) theory, often referred to as sociocultural theory, locates the source of higher forms of mental functioning in social relationships. Development does not proceed from individual mind to social relationships but “toward individualization of social functions (transformation of social functions into psychological functions)” (Vygotsky, 1989: 61). He goes on to state:
Any function in the child’s cultural development appears twice, or on two planes. First it appears on the social plane, and then on the psychological plane. First it appears between people as an interpsychological category, and then within the child as an intrapsychological category… Social relations or relations among people genetically underlie all higher functions and their relationships.
(Vygotsky, 1981, p. 163)
Vygotsky’s work has had a significant impact on studies of L2 learning in classrooms. This work is discussed in more depth in Chapter 8. Here we take a closer look at the notions of mediation and mediational means. Understanding the role of mediation and the relationships between social activity, semiotic resources and other mediational means, and the development of higher mental functions are main concerns of Vygotsky’s theory of development (1978, 1987).
A key premise of Vygotsky’s theory is that learning takes place in the processes of socialization as children learn to use semiotic resources and other cultural resources to construct, represent, and remember their social worlds in their interactions with others. The semiotic resources serve to regulate, i.e., mediate novices’ developing understandings of their worlds, their relationships with others, and their own mental processes (Lantolf, 2000). Also mediating individuals’ development is the assistance provided by more knowledgeable others to the novices in transforming the social resources into individual tools for use.
In this capacity, the semiotic resources that are used for making meaning are considered mediational means or “the ‘carriers’ of sociocultural patterns and knowledge” (Wertsch, 1994, p. 204). In addition to linguistic constructions, mediational means can include computational resources such as computers and calculators, graphic resources such as diagrams, maps and drawings, artifacts and tools such as books, clocks, hammers, writing systems, and writing devices. Even physical objects and their spatial arrangements, such as those of classrooms, and environmental structures such as road signs, traffic lights, and street grids mediate individuals’ participation in their social worlds.
Mediational means then are the design tools of our social activities and we use them to instantiate, represent, and remember our involvement in them. We use calendars, for example, to help us remember when events will take place and to organize our commitments; we use maps to help us get from one place to another; and we use diagrams and drawings to help us visualize spatial and other kinds of arrangements. In theory, mediational means can be anything that is used to make meaning in social activities of social groups.
In the ways that the mediational means are used in individuals’ social worlds, they give shape not only to the settings within which development occurs, but, more importantly, to the paths that individual development takes. In other words, the means themselves and the ways in which they are used in the processes of socialization do not simply awaken what is already in the mind of individuals, enhancing an otherwise fixed course of development. Rather, they fundamentally shape and transform it. The resulting repertoires of resources reflect at the same time individuals’ “socialization and individuation” (Williams, 1977, p. 37). Indeed, as Vygotsky argues, it is through the processes of socialization that we “grow into the intellectual world of those around us” (1978, p. 88). Vygotsky explains this in more detail in Quote 5.3.
Quote 5.3 The Role of Mediational Means in Development
The greatest characteristic feature of child development is that this development is achieved under particular conditions of interactions with the environment, where the ideal and final form (ideal in the sense that it acts as a model for that which should be achieved at the end of the developmental period; and final in the sense that it represents what the child is supposed to attain at the end of its development) is not only already present and from the very start in contact with the child, but actually interacts and exerts a real influence on the primary form, on the first steps of the child’s development. Something which is only supposed to take shape at the very end of development, somehow influences the very first steps in this development.
Vygotksy (1994, p. 344)
Alongside this body of research has been growing interest in documenting the embodied resources by which learning in mediated in L2 learning contexts. Embodied resources are nonverbal bodily means for taking action such as gestures, facial expressions, gaze, head movements, body movements and postures, and so on. In Chapter 8 we examine more closely the mediational role of instructional practices found in classrooms. Here we summarize findings on the specific role of an embodied resource, gesture, in mediating learning.
One research direction has focused on how teachers use gestures to mediate student learning of particular linguistic constructions (e.g., Belhiah, 2013; Churchill, Okada, Nishino, & Atkinson, 2010; Eskildsen & Wagner, 2013, 2015; Hudson, 2011; Matsumoto & Dobs, 2017; Smotrova & Lantolf, 2013; van Compernolle & Smotrova, 2014). For example, Matsumoto and Dobs (2017) show how a teacher’s use of gestures in a university-level ESL class helped to make abstract grammatical concepts concrete and visible to students. They further showed that the gestures were appropriated by the students as resources to demonstrate their developing understandings of the concepts.
Another strand of research on gesture has examined its use by students to mediate theirs and others’ participation in group tasks (e.g., Olsher, 2004; Mori & Hayashi, 2006; van Compernolle & Williams, 2011). For example, Olsher (2004) examined how gestures and other embodied behaviors served as interactional resources for a group of students in an EFL classroom working on a small group activity. He found that, in addition to pointing gestures, which were used to direct attention to an object or person as the project work unfolded, gestures were combined with other embodied resources to demonstrate learners’ understandings and thereby complete turns in the accomplishment of their project. Together, studies on embodied resources such as gestures in L2 contexts of learning establish their intrinsic roles in the doing of teaching, i.e., in mediating learners’ development, and, in their use by students, in mediating and demonstrating their own learning.
The social worlds into which children are born are “saturated with social and cultural forces, predilections, symbols, ideologies, and practices” (Ochs & Schieffelin, 2017, p. 6). Predicated on this premise, a great deal of research on L1 language socialization has revealed how children’s language learning is intimately tied to the processes of being socialized into their social worlds. In the process, they learn how to mean, that is, to connect the semiotic resources used in their social activities to their indexical meanings, and how to use the resources to recreate their contexts of use, including the beliefs and values ascribed to the resources. L2 learning is based on the same principles as L1 socialization. However, the processes and outcomes are much more complicated for adolescents and adults as they come to their L2 contexts of learning having been socialized into wide-ranging multilingual, multimodal activities as part of their upbringing in their first language(s) social groups and institutions.
The concepts of indexicality, mediation, and mediational means are useful tools for understanding the links between the meanings of semiotic resources and their contexts of use, how their uses recreate their meanings and how, as mediational means, the resources mediate the processes and outcomes of socialization. Research on the role played by embodied resources such as gestures in mediating L2 learning reveals that they are as central to the processes of learning as verbal means are.
At the meso level of social activity, L2 learning happens through the processes of socialization, whereby learners’ participation is mediated by wide-ranging multimodal, multilingual, and embodied semiotic resources. From an understanding of learning as mediated and embodied, we can derive three implications for understanding L2 teaching.
L2 classrooms are significant socializing contexts, L2 teachers are significant agents of socialization, and the resources we use to teach are significant mediational means. The means include written and digital materials such as textbooks, images, and videos, objects, the various types of instructional activities, and even the spatial arrangements of our classrooms, in addition to language. The decisions we make, then, in terms of what to teach, how to teach it, what counts as student participation and displays of learning are consequential to the learning paths our learners take and to their outcomes in terms of their developing L2 repertoires. Indeed, L2 teaching is highly demanding, sophisticated, and consequential professional work.
L2 teaching, i.e., mediating L2 learning, is accomplished by “exploiting a large array of multimodal resources, mobilized and packaged in an emergent, incremental, dynamic way” (Mondada, 2014, p. 140). Significant components of this array are our embodied resources, which, in addition to gestures, include facial expressions, body positionings and movements, and eye gaze. These resources are integrated holistically with speech, with their meanings defined locally, within the contexts of the unfolding activity. Gestures in particular play a significant role in mediating teaching and learning. Gestures display additional information to learners, which they can use to make sense of teachers’ actions. Their use by learners provide additional information to us, as teachers, about their developing understandings. Understanding their integral role in the processes of L2 socialization is significant to understanding the complexities of L2 teaching.
The processes of socialization are equally important to the professional development of teachers. Our development as teachers reaches back to the thousands of hours we have spent as students in classrooms, observing and evaluating their teachers. Lortie (1975) labeled this “apprenticeship by observation”. It also takes place informally, in interactions we have had with stakeholders such as parents and students, and outside of the profession, with family and friends. It has also occurred through exposure to portrayals of teachers in media such as movies and television shows. By the time we begin our formal preparation, we have already internalized understandings and beliefs about classroom teaching and learning, and about teachers and students. These understandings are highly influential to the trajectories that our professional socialization takes in our teacher preparation programs, and in interactions with our professors, mentor teachers, and peer teachers. Developing expertise in teaching demands continual critical reflection on our beliefs and on how they inform our teaching practices and professional roles as teachers.
This series of pedagogical activities will assist you in relating to and making sense of the concepts that inform our understanding of L2 learning as mediated and embodied.
Media such as books, videos, video games, movies, and televisions play a significant role in socializing children, adolescents, and adults into ways of understanding and making meaning in their social worlds. For each stage of your life (childhood, adolescence, and adulthood), choose two or three media that you feel have been the most influential to your development of your semiotic repertoire. For each medium, list specific ways – positive and negative – it has shaped specific registers comprising your repertoire. Create a visual representation of the paths your socialization has taken and compare to your classmates. Conclude the activity with a discussion of possible implications for L2 teaching and learning.
Obtain a video of a classroom. Classbank is an open repository of videos that is located at talkbank.org. You can find a video there or you can search for one using an internet browser if you do not have a video available. As you view the video, identify and discuss at least four different mediational means that are being used. Then consider the following questions:
What kinds of knowledge and skills are the students being socialized into?
How does this context compare to your schooling contexts in terms of mediational means?
What features are similar?
What features are different?
What can you conclude about the links between teaching and learning?
Select two of the concepts listed in Box 5.1. Craft a definition of each of the two concepts in your own words. Create one or two concrete examples of the concept that you have either experienced first-hand or can imagine. Pose one or two questions that you still have about the concept and develop a way to gather more information.
Box 5.1 Concepts: L2 learning is mediated and embodied
embodied resources
indexicality
indexicals
language socialization
mediation
mediational means
Choose one of the concepts you selected on which to gather additional information. Using the internet, search for information about the concept. Create a list of five or so facts about it. These can include names of scholars who study the concept, studies that have been done on the concept along with their findings, visual images depicting the concept, and so on. Create a concept web that visually records the information you gathered from your explorations.
Choose one of the commercials to view. Discuss the meanings that are being indexed in the semiotic resources that are used, e.g., linguistic constructions, prosodic cues, nonverbal behaviors such as facial expressions and gestures, artifacts etc.
This is a commercial for Bud Light, a beer. It consists of one word, “dude”, being uttered in different situations.
The next two are commercials for State Farm Insurance Company. Each depicts two difference scenes with the same dialogue.
Choose one of the studies below on the embodied resources of L2 teaching and learning. Summarize the study, using the following questions to guide you:
What is the purpose of the study?
What are the main concepts?
What methods and procedures for collecting and analyzing the data were used?
What are the findings?
What implications can you derive for understanding L2 teaching and learning?
Eskildsen, S. & Wagner, J. (2015). Embodied L2 construction learning. 65(2), Language Learning, 419–448.
Kääntä, L. (2012) Teachers’ embodied allocations in instructional interaction. Classroom Discourse, 3(2), 166–186.
Rosborough, A. (2014). Gesture, meaning-making, and embodiment: Second language learning in an elementary classroom. Journal of Pedagogy, (5), 227–250.
Cekaite, A. (2012). Affective stances in teacher-novice student interactions: Language, embodiment, and willingness to learn in a Swedish primary classroom. Language in Society, (41), 641–670.
Create a multimodal project in which you document your professional socialization as an L2 teacher. Consider the people, the activities, and the semiotic resources that were most important along the way. Also consider the development of your beliefs such as those about teaching and your role as teacher, about the classroom, about students, about professional development and your professional vision, and so on.
Using one or two of the studies on the embodied resources of L2 teaching and learning as models, design a single case study in which you explore the role of gesture in teaching and learning. A single case study is an in-depth empirical examination of one specific person, group, or context. In the design, include the following information:
Identification of the classroom and participants.
Descriptions of the lesson or set of lessons on which you will collect data, how long you anticipate the lessons to be, and the means you will use to collect the data. While there are many means for collecting data, for a study on the use of gesture, videotaping is the most comprehensive means.
Identification of the means you will use to secure participants’ consent, how you will arrange and manage the video recorders in the classroom, and any additional data you plan to collect.
Description of how you will analyze the data.
Anticipated implications for enhancing your understandings of the role of gesture in teaching and learning.
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Belhiah, H. (2013). Using the hand to choreograph instruction: On the functional role of gesture in definition talk. The Modern Language Journal, 97(2), 417–434.
Byrnes, H. (2008). Advanced language learning: The contribution of Halliday and Vygotsky. New York; London: Continuum.
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Churchill, E., Okada, H., Nishino, T., & Atkinson, D. (2010). Symbiotic gesture and the sociocognitive visibility of grammar in second language acquisition. The Modern Language Journal, 94(2), 234–253.
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Ervin-Tripp, S., & Mitchell-Kernan, C. (Eds.) (1977). Child discourse. New York: Academic Press.
Eskildsen, S. W., & Wagner. J. (2013). Recurring and shared gestures in the L2 classroom: Resources for teaching and learning. European Journal of Applied Linguistics, 1(1), 1–23.
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Hall, J. K. (2011). Teaching and researching language and culture, 2nd ed. London: Pearson.
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