Integration of Gestures into Educational Systems to Benefit Cognition and Memory

    Recently, I had the opportunity to listen to Dr. Elizabeth Wakefield present her research regarding the impact of gestures on memory and learning. In her paper, Language Proficiency Impacts the Benefits of Co-Speech Gesture for Narrative Understanding Through a Visual Attention Mechanism, she worked extensively with Natalia Zelinski to study this concept with the use of eye tracking. According to Wakefield, “Gestures are spontaneous hand movements that are tied temporally and semantically to speech, and used naturally when we communicate with others (McNeill, 1992)”. Their study focused predominantly on the idea that hand gestures can be compensatory in situations where the target audience is bilingual, specifically earlier in development. This research study was conducted using children who are proficient in English and learning Polish as a second language. There were also three gesture groups used, which are characterized as follows: 

1. No Gesture (control): gestures were absent for the duration of the story 
2. Matching Gesture: gestures were demonstrated simultaneously and congruent with the contents of the story
3. Mismatched Gesture: gestures were demonstrated simultaneously and incongruent with the contents of the story 

The results of the study showed that demonstrating matching gestures paired with some form of audio, in this case, a story, significantly improved the children’s learning, comprehension, and memory of the story. Prior to hearing this talk, I was curious about how effective this technique would be when performed on children who are proficient in a foreign language and learning English in school. 

In relation to this, an article published by The Washington Post titled, Education Department quietly removes rules for teaching English learners, discusses the recent rescission of guidance for bilingual students in an effort to accelerate a presidential order to make English the official language of the United States. In layman’s terms, this means that the American educational system is revoking the necessity to determine how each school handles the education of bilingual students. As a result of this, depending on the state, some schools may no longer provide services that aid bilingual students in learning, while others may increase assistance for bilingual students. These decisions may or may not be made with regard to the students’ proficient language, which could raise complications in learning, considering some students’ first language may not be English, despite the fact that they were born in the U.S. In the article, Ira Mehlman claims, “If you devote all these resources to these kids coming in [to school] completely unprepared, inevitably it will diminish the quality of education others are getting”; however, Todd Dubois states, “some education is needed to help “bridge the gap” for students who do not speak English, but the group is concerned that multilingualism “gets in the way of teaching English literacy earlier in life” (Meckler and McDaniel).  Although this may be true, I believe that one’s inability to comprehend instruction will create a much greater setback earlier in life than the troubles that would arise from being multilingual, yet less proficient in English.

    In spite of the fact that The Washington Post article did not discuss this, by decreasing the services that are offered to bilingual students, those students will inevitably struggle significantly more in learning than students who speak English. If the bilingual students are not being accommodated appropriately, it is possible that the school might relate their struggles to impaired cognition, when in reality, the primary issue is that these students were not offered the linguistic input necessary to understand the English-speaking instructors. Bilingual students will have to focus on decoding instructions, while the English-speaking students will be encoding information, which, over time, will put bilingual students at a disadvantage. This, in turn, seems counterintuitive considering I was always taught that being bilingual is extremely advantageous. This goes hand in hand with Dr. Wakefield’s research, as gestures can be a subtle way to aid bilingual students in learning and comprehension, without conflicting with the school district in regions that decide to decrease assistance for bilingual students. This can be beneficial to all students, as opposed to prioritizing the advancement of English-speaking students, which was emphasized by the article. By integrating gestures into lessons, both bilingual and English-speaking students will be able to better understand the material they are learning, in turn improving comprehension and memory. Integrating gestures will also aid schools in deciphering between cognitive impairment and language barriers in students who progress at a slower rate than others.

    To summarize all of the aforementioned information, Dr. Wakefield and Zelinskis’ research determined that the use of gestures paired with audible instruction can significantly improve cognition and memory in bilingual elementary students that are proficient in English. In relation, the U.S. Department of Education has decided to refrain from providing guidance to schools in regard to providing proper assistance when educating bilingual students. This new regime can create arbitrary setbacks, specifically for the bilingual students, due to the fact that they will not be receiving adequate accommodations. To counteract this, Dr. Wakefield’s research technique can be exercised in schools for the betterment of learning and encoding memory in both bilingual and English proficient students. 

Works Cited

Meckler, Laura, and Justine McDaniel. “Education Department Quietly Removes Rules for Teaching English Learners.” The Washington Post, 20 Aug. 2025, www.washingtonpost.com/education/2025/08/20/education-department-english-learner-rules/. Accessed 1 March 2026.

Zielinski, Natalia, and Elizabeth M. Wakefield. “Language Proficiency Impacts the Benefits of Co-Speech Gesture for Narrative Understanding through a Visual Attention Mechanism.” Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, vol. 43, no. 43, 2021, escholarship.org/uc/item/63r5d3qq. Accessed 1 March 2026.