Embodied Interaction in Second Language Teaching/Learning

Abstract

Just as in everyday face-to-face social interaction, non-classroom learners, students, and teachers draw on a wide range of embodied tools, including gaze, gesture, facial expression, and body movement. Embodied tools express semantic meaning, nuance, perspective, and emotional valence, thereby guiding the understanding of talk.

Appendices

The Research Questions

• 1. How can embodied interaction facilitate language production in the classroom?

• 2. How can embodied interaction facilitate language comprehension in the classroom?

• 3. In what ways does embodied interaction affect classroom management?

• 4. How can embodied tools help teachers create and maintain teacher-student rapport?

• 5. Should embodied interaction be integrated into teacher training? If so, how? If not, why not?

• 6. How can students be taught to better understand teachers’ embodied cues?

• 7. What are the best methodological tools to study embodied classroom interaction?

• 8. What problems related to embodied interaction can arise in multicultural teaching contexts?

• 9. What can studies of embodied interaction outside the classroom tell us about studying it in the classroom?

• 10. How are teaching and learning defined in studies focusing on L2 teaching/learning and embodied interaction?

Suggested Resources

Atkinson, D., Churchill, E., Nishino, T., & Okada, H. (2007). Alignment and interaction in a sociocognitive approach to second language acquisition. The Modern Language Journal, 91, 169–188.

The article introduces the concept of alignment and discusses its importance for second language acquisition. The authors argue that alignment is created by various sociocognitive affordances, including participants’ embodied actions, and from this perspective they view embodied actions as facilitators of the learning process. To illustrate the concept of alignment in a teaching context, the authors analyzed several episodes presenting interaction between a Japanese high school student and her tutor. In the episodes, embodied actions played a crucial role, allowing the tutor to move the teaching process along and helping the student produce correct responses–thus making their interaction effective from the alignment point of view.

Sert, O., & Jacknick, C. M. (2015). Student smiles and the negotiation of epistemics in L2 classrooms. Journal of Pragmatics, 77, 97–112.

The purpose of this study was to examine a particular feature of embodied behavior–smiles. Specifically, the researchers looked at how students’ smiles in ESL and EFL classrooms helped to resolve interactional trouble caused by the issues related to epistemic status, that is, participants’ “relative access to information or knowledge” (p. 100). By analyzing video recordings of interaction in ESL and EFL classrooms, Sert and Jacknick found that students smiled in situations in which they presented themselves as “unknowing participants” (p. 109), in other words, displaying their lack of knowledge, which inevitably led to problems in interaction, most notably disaffiliation and disalignment. Students’ smiles in these situations therefore contributed to maintaining affiliation and alignment and preserving the progressivity of interaction.

Shvidko, E. (2018). Writing conference feedback as moment-to-moment affiliative relationship building. Journal of Pragmatics, 127, 20–35.

The purpose of this study was to explore the affective function of teacher embodied behavior. Specifically, it looked at how teacher embodied tools helped a writing instructor in a university composition course provide feedback on student writing in non-threatening and affiliative ways during individual writing conferences. Shvidko analyzed two instructional instances in conference interaction–providing critical feedback and uttering a directive, and found that the teacher drew on a wide range of embodied interactional tools, including facial expression, gesture, gaze, body position, smile and laughter, that were used in a way that allowed her to minimize her authoritative position, create solidarity with students, and maintain a positive interactional atmosphere at the conferences.

van Compernolle, R., & Smotrova, T. (2013). Corrective feedback, gesture, and mediation in classroom language learning. Language and Sociocultural Theory, 1, 25–47.

The study explored a mediational function of gesture incorporated in corrective feedback. By providing a detailed analysis of a single case of teacher’s error correction in a beginning-level ESL reading class, van Compernolle and Smotrova demonstrated how gestures synchronized with speech can be an effective mediational tool in correcting students’ errors. The analyzed instance of the teacher’s integration of gesture in corrective feedback showed that although the student benefited from the teacher’s correction, which was demonstrated by the accuracy of his subsequent utterance, it was the gesture that mediated the student’s learning. Based on the findings of this study, van Compernolle and Smotrova suggested that “researchers interested in corrective feedback as mediation in classroom language teaching and learning would do well to consider at least the potential contribution of speech gesture synchrony when making claims about the function of corrective feedback” (p. 41).

Wang, W., & Loewen, S. (2015). Nonverbal behavior and corrective feedback in nine ESL university-level classrooms. Language Teaching Research, https://doi.org/10.1177/1362168815577239.

The study looked at embodied strategies employed by instructors when providing corrective feedback. The researchers identified a wide range of embodied tools, the most common of which were head nod, headshake, and pointing gesture. The results also showed that the types of embodied behavior mainly depended on the nature of the courses and the material used in class. For example, in a reading course, the teacher used a variety of iconic gestures to explain the meanings of verbs found in the text, whereas a grammar teacher frequently employed deictic gestures to explain verb tenses. The findings of the study allowed Wang and Loewen to conclude that understanding of teaching practices without taking into account teachers’ embodied behavior is impoverished, and that the teachers’ awareness of the types and occurrences of nonverbal tools during corrective feedback can increase the effectiveness of this pedagogical practice.