EFL Teachers' Gestural Strategies in Online-Synchronous Classrooms: Facilitating Embodied Participation – “Show me your gesture

Date

2023-11-04

Author

Şimşek, Asuman

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With the widespread adoption of technology in education, the prevalence of online learning platforms has necessitated adaptations in instructional strategies by English as a Foreign Language (EFL) teachers. While gestures, as a non-verbal communication tool, play a crucial role in face-to-face language classrooms, their effectiveness in online learning environments remains relatively unexplored. This research study aims to investigate the employment of gestural strategies by EFL teachers in online-synchronous classrooms at a preparatory school at a state university in Türkiye. The data for this study consists of video-recordings of online lessons, which were analyzed through multimodal Conversation Analysis. The findings reveal that teachers employ hand gestures to facilitate online classroom interaction. Specifically, the analysis unveiled that teachers utilized hand gestures to facilitate and orchestrate interactions within the online classroom setting. This strategy of gesture use promotes embodied participation, wherein students are encouraged to self-select their turn and provide responses using gestures alongside their peers. By adapting their turn designs to the limitations of the online environment, EFL teachers create an inclusive atmosphere that promotes multimodal responses and maximizes student participation through gestures such as thumbs-up and thumbs-down. This research study highlights the legitimacy of embodied participation as a valid form of engagement in online synchronous classrooms. Furthermore, it offers pedagogical implications for online language teaching environments and provides practical recommendations to enhance video-mediated interaction for teachers, teacher educators, and language practitioners.

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https://hdl.handle.net/11511/107462

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Department of Foreign Language Education, Conference / Seminar