Recent research in the field of gesture and learning has helped construct modern scholarly thought regarding the benefit of co-speech gesture for the learning of a new language. However, in practice, the role of co-speech gesture was complicated by remote learning during the COVID-19 pandemic, and there are lasting effects that have continued in the post-pandemic era. This article will outline modern scholarly understanding of co-speech gestures, the complications that arose during remote learning, and the continued difficulties facing students as they return to the classroom.
In the article titled "Language Proficiency Impacts the Benefits of Co-Speech Gesture for Narrative Understanding Through a Visual Attention Mechanism" written by Natalia Zielinski and Dr. Elizabeth Wakefield, the authors ask bilingual English-Polish speaking children to recall details from a spoken narrative. There was an English and Polish narrative, and the narrative conditions were no gesture, matching gesture, and mismatched gesture. The authors found that children’s ability to recall details from the spoken narrative was improved with matching gestures when the narrative was in Polish, the children’s weaker language (Zielinski & Wakefield). Research such as this data from the Wakefield Lab at Loyola University Chicago can help facilitate teaching strategies. For example, teachers who are helping children learn a new language can increase and optimize their gesture usage to facilitate improved learning. However, the use of co-speech gestures becomes complicated in a remote learning setting.
Throughout the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, nearly all children were subjected to remote learning in some capacity for some duration of time. In this setting, co-speech gestures and nonverbal cues are significantly diminished, posing harm to students’ learning. In an article for the New York Times on December 29th, 2020, reporter Juliana Kim outlines how the “toll [of remote learning] has been especially severe for students who come from immigrant homes where English is rarely if ever spoken” (Kim, 2020). When immigrant students are in-person, they can absorb English almost like a sponge: they are surrounded by English speech, nonverbal gestures and communication from their teachers, and model examples of other students following teachers’ verbal and nonverbal instruction. However, under pandemic conditions when students are joining class on Zoom, these effects all deteriorate: they are surrounded by English speech for far less of their day, nonverbal gestures and communication from their teacher becomes much more difficult to decipher through the screen, and they lack the same model example of observing other students’ behaviors. Thus, while Dr. Wakefield’s research demonstrated the benefit of co-speech gestures for narrative comprehension in students’ weaker languages, these benefits may diminish in a remote learning context without some of the same nonverbal cues that shape the intrinsic value of co-speech gestures.
The damaging effects of remote learning continue to reverberate through the present day. According to the Illinois State Board of Education, in 2022, English language learners between 3rd and 8th grade demonstrated significant deficits in English Language Arts proficiency compared to their native English-speaking counterparts, and English language learners taking the SAT also demonstrated extreme deficits in Reading scores compared to their native English-speaking counterparts. In fact, only 1% of English language learners demonstrated proficiency in the SAT Reading section (Smylie, 2022). These trends in Illinois education mirrors patterns observed nationwide and mark sharp declines in scoring compared to pre-pandemic learning.
Integrating Dr. Wakefield’s research, Kim’s article, and Smylie’s article, it creates a holistic picture of the complications presented by remote learning for co-speech gestures, especially for those learning a new language. Dr. Wakefield’s research can help offer a scientific background and justification for the observations noted in Kim and Smylie’s respective articles; however, the more important takeaway must reside in how this information will shape future styles of education. With these deficits in co-speech gesture and nonverbal forms of learning, language teachers and educational advisory boards must modify the education system to accommodate for pandemic and post-pandemic era students’ unique life experiences. Perhaps, educational authorities can consider deliberate increase in co-speech gesture use as a form of compensation for what was lost during the pandemic. The overarching conclusion from synthesizing gesture-based learning research and learning in practice is that more research must be done in order to shape the future of our educational system to provide future generations of students with the best chance at success in their learning.
References:
Kim, J. (2020, December 29). With remote learning, a 12-year-old knows her English is
slipping away. The New York Times.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/29/nyregion/coronavirus-english-language-students.html
Smylie, S. (2022, October 27). Illinois test scores highlight pandemic fallout with declines in
math, reading. Chalkbeat Chicago.
Zielinski, N., & Wakefield, E. (n.d.). Language Proficiency Impacts the Benefits of
Co-Speech Gesture for Narrative Understanding Through a Visual Attention Mechanism.
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