A gesture-based approach to teaching english as a second language.

FACULTAD DE FILOLOGÍA TESIS DOCTORAL TÍTULO: A gesture-based approach to teaching English as a Second Language. AUTOR: Michael Alan Bilbrough DIRECTORA: Dra. Gloria Álvarez-Benito Fecha: VºBº del Tutor: Firma: Firmado: Dra. Gloria Álvarez Benito iv For Maria and Angela, their love, support and endless patience. “We write things down so we don’t have to remember .” (The late Dave Willis – at least, I seem to remember him saying that – perhaps I shouldn’t have written it down! He was concerned with language learning, of course, not shopping lists.) This quote in loving memory of my father: English teacher and Shakespeare scholar. “I cannot too much muse Such shapes, such gesture and such sound, expressing, Although they want the use of tongue, a kind Of excellent dumb discourse.” (William Shakespeare, The Tempest, III, 3.) v A gesture-based approach to teaching English as a Second Language. Autor: Michael Alan Bilbrough Tutora: Gloria Álvarez-Benito Febrero 2017 vi vii Acknowledgements. My many and very special thanks to María de Gracia, the headmistress of CEIP Pedro Primero, for her belief in this project and her coordinating and encouragement which helped the smooth running of the experimental English course. A well-deserved thanks also to the various teachers and staff, whose patience I tried time and again asking for favours, interrupting classes at inappropriate times for testing and interviews. I am especially indebted to my group of experimental course students, who stepped forward as unwitting guinea pigs to participate in what must have initially seemed a rather crazy way to learn English. For their enthusiasm, vibrant energy and willingness to put aside traditional classroom practices and attempt something new, I am grateful. Finally, a heartfelt thanks and eternal gratitude to my tutor and guide, Dra. Gloria Álvarez Benito at Seville University, for her acceptance to take on board a doctoral thesis project of not the most conventional nature, her unerring judgement and unwavering and constant support throughout and ability to boost morale when my energies were flagging and fuel a conviction that what I was doing was of value. viii INDEX Abbreviations and new terminology used in this thesis. viii 1. INTRODUCTION. 1 1.1. Distinguishing between tool and methodology. 1 1.2. Specific experiment objectives. 3 2. STATE OF THE ART. 5 2.1. Gesture, imagery, memory and language acquisition – a preamble. 5 2.2. Imagery, body, memory, recall and learning – a brief historical synopsis. 7 2.3. Classical memory systems revisited. 14 2.4. Manipulation and motoric imagery. 22 2.5. Gestures and learning. 26 2.6. Four significant SL teaching approaches: TPR, Co-grammatical Gestures, the Silent Way and AIM. 34 2.7. English language teaching in Spain. 55 3. METHODS. 67 3.1. Course set-up. 67 3.2. Classroom management and methodology. 73 4. THEORETICAL CONSIDERATIONS PERTAINING TO GESTUREWAY. 87 4.1. Basic concepts and nomenclature. 88 4.2. Established language acquisition approaches relevant to GW. 96 4.3. The role of text in language learning and GW. 105 4.4. Alternative means to present and elicit L2 – fluctuating and constant conceptual pegs. 111 ix 5. RESULTS. 118 5.1. Test evaluation considerations and design. 118 5.2. The pilot test. 119 5.3. The written pre-test. 122 5.4. The speaking pre-test. 126 5.5. The written and listening post-test. 134 5.6. The communicative areas of the post-test – results analysis. 139 5.7. Speaking post-test. 147 5.8. A qualitative assessment of the Gesture Way course. 163 6. CONCLUSIONS. 186 REFERENCES. 195 ANNEXES. 207 Annexe 1. Categories of GW artificial gestures. 207 Annexe 2. Enrolment and authorisation letters between TR and parents. 229 Annexe 3. Selected correspondence, TR and Pedro Primero. 232 Annexe 4. Selected correspondence, TR and parents. 234 Annexe 5. Official agreement of collaboration. 237 Annexe 6. Liability insurance policy taken out for duration of course. 242 Annexe 7. Pilot test versions. 244 Annexe 8. Pre-test written and speaking materials and marking sheet. 246 Annexe 9. Listening, reading and writing post-test. 259 Annexe 10. Post-test speaking. 265 Annexe 11. Examples of story materials used for gesturing. 266 Annexe 12. Student diploma for course completion. 275 x Abbreviations and new terminology used in this thesis. ADHD - Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. CV - Number of different verbs (except be) used correctly in the preand post-tests. CP(E) – Complete Production (Environment). This refers to L2 production without any controlled language assistance or at most minimal prompts such as required for L2 classroom situations. DSLI – Direct Student Language Interaction. A dynamic where learners are actively engaged in fully communicative L2 tasks involving holistic language. DSLI excludes tasks such as discrete item and written cloze exercise tasks, rote learning, repetition, etc.. EA – Error Analysis. GW – GestureWay. A methodology based on input-based learning but where input and eliciting of L2 is provided by an artificial gesture code. L1 and L2 – mother tongue and second language or foreign language respectively.1 PP(E) – Partial Production (Environment). The unique controlled environment brought about during Silent Sign that assists learners in L2 production. Silent Sign – The technique in GW where the teacher elicits spoken language from learners through the silent input of hand gestures. TPR – Total Physical Response. Language teaching tool developed by James Asher comprising the use of actions. TR – Teacher Researcher. The teaching and researching role the author of this thesis carries out during the experimental course. 1 The terms “foreign language” and “second language” are often used with reference to different language learning contexts in the literature. In this thesis no particular context is intended other than simply L2. 1. Introduction 1 1. INTRODUCTION. This thesis will evaluate the influence of a second language learning teaching tool which comprises input of artificial gestures to enhance and accelerate L2 English input in the classroom. The purpose of this gesture tool is to offer learners greater exposure to the new language for more rapid, effective acquisition. The target experimental group is a class of Spanish primary school children. Results from the experiment will provide quantitative data regarding modifications in learners’ L2 interlanguage and structure knowledge before and after an academic year’s course of English classes where this tool is employed. As this tool is relatively new and designed by the author of this thesis, a description of its nature and functioning in the classroom will also be provided. Furthermore, a qualitative analysis will comment on the observations made while implementing the tool and the learners’ reactions and adaptation to its novel dynamic. 1.1. Distinguishing between tool and methodology. The author of this thesis (from herein referred to as “the author”, “examiner” and “Teacher Researcher” or “TR”) employs the word “tool” with reference to the artificial gesture code under test in the experiment and not “methodology”. In the past, “methodology” has centred on assessing the quantities of form instruction preferable for effective L2 acquisition or learning. The Grammar Translation Method, the Direct Method, the Audiolingual Method, the Natural Approach and others all assume a certain emphasis, either greater or lesser, on the degree of teaching of form, grammar, notional and functional language. “Method” has always meant explorations of these variables in the English language classroom ranging from full explicit grammar and structure input moving right across the spectrum to an absence of explicit structure teaching. As the full range, from extensive form instruction approaches (for example, Grammar-Translation A gesture-based approach to teaching English as a Second Language 8 strengthened or confirmed by training” (Yates 1966:5). It is significant to note how memory accomplishments in history have been passed on down through the ages. The following were noted by the Elder Pliny in his Natural History: The Persian ruler Cyrus the Great (seventh century) knew all the names of the men in his army; the Roman general, Lucius Scipio ‘the names of all the Roman people’; Mithridates of Pontus (third century) knew the languages of all the twenty-two nationalities in his domains; the Greek philosopher, Charmadas (second century) learnt the contents of all the volumes in his huge library (Yates 1966:41). Simonides, a sixth century BC Greek poet and philosopher, is held to have invented the precepts of the art of artificial memory. He was present at a splendid banquet of celebrities and when he left momentarily to attend to visitors the building collapsed and crushed to death all the other guests. Such was the mutilation of the bodies that no relative could recognise the remains. Simonides, however, was able to identify each and every guest by remembering where they had been sitting. From this experience came the concept of (in locis illustribus), the association of places with items to be memorised (species rerum). Therefore, “art of memory” has been attributed to Simonides of Ceos and his realisation that by making mental images of subjects within an ordered set of places “so that the order of the places will preserve the order of the things, and the images of the things will denote the things themselves” (Cicero, De oratore, in Yates 1966:2). The most significant work on artificial memory dating back to classical times is the memory section of Ad Herennium. Yates informs us: “An immense weight of history presses on the memory section of Ad Herennium. It is drawing on Greek sources of memory teaching, probably in Greek treatises on rhetoric all of which are lost. […] Its role as the transmitter of the classical art to the Middle Ages and the Renaissance is also of unique importance” (1966:5). 2. State of the Art 9 A picture of the “artificial memory” technique was explained by Quintilian’s Institutio Oratorio drawn from the Ad Herrenium. It was clearly a method for orators so that they were able to deliver long speeches without notae and not forget the order they had planned to deliver their addresses. To use this mnemonic, Yates paraphrases Quintillian: […] a building is to be remembered, as spacious and varied a one as possible, the forecourt, the living room, bedrooms, and parlours, not omitting statues and other ornaments with which the rooms are decorated. The images by which the speech is to be remembered are then placed in imagination on the places which have been memorised in the building. This done, as soon as the memory of the facts requires to be revived, all these places are visited in turn and the various deposits demanded of their custodians (1966:3). Then the Ad Herrennium itself tells us: “For the places are very much like wax tablets or papyrus, the images like the letters, the arrangement and disposition of the images like the script, and the delivery is like the reading.” Then there is a detailed section regarding the nature of the images to be used in artificial memory. Now nature herself teaches us what we should do. When we see in every day life things that are petty, ordinary, and banal, we generally fail to remember them, because the mind is not being stirred by anything novel or marvellous. But if we see or hear something exceptionally base, dishonourable, unusual, great, unbelievable, or ridiculous, that we are likely to remember for a long time [...] We ought, then, to set up images of a kind that can adhere longest in memory. And we shall do so if we establish similitudes as striking as possible… (Ad Herennium in Yates 1966:10). Yates points out that the underlying principles of “artificial memory” require “impressions of almost incredible intensity”. This observation was taken from Cicero who claimed that “[…] the keenest of all our senses is the sense of sight, and that consequently perceptions received by the ears or by reflexion can be most easily retained if they are also conveyed to our minds by the mediation of the eyes” (De oratore in Yates 1966:4). Interestingly, it was the thirteenth century Dominican monk, theologian and philosopher, St Thomas Aquinas, who extended the precepts of artificial memory to later centuries of scholars. The earliest clear reference we have to St Thomas and his A gesture-based approach to teaching English as a Second Language 10 beliefs on artificial memory are laid down in a summa of similitudes for the use of preachers by Giovanni di San Gimignano (Summa de exemplis ac similitudinibus rerum) in the fourteenth century. He writes: There are four things which help a man to remember well. The first is that he should dispose those things which he wishes to remember in a certain order. The second is that he should adhere to them with affection. The third is that he should reduce them to unusual similitudes. The fourth is that he should repeat them with frequent meditation (in Yates 1966:85). Around the year 1306, the Florentine artist and architect, Giotto di Bondone, broke the medieval mould and moved into the Renaissance with his dramatic frescoes of virtues and vices. He drew “all his figures and their postures according to nature” (Wikipedia/Giotto). Yates strongly suggests that by the way the figures stand out from their backgrounds “owe[s] something to memory”. Yates tells us that the dramatic character of the images suggested by Cicero would have strongly appealed to the genius of Giotto: “the movement of Charity [...] the frenzied gestures of constancy”. The sense of depth in the frescoes, light and dark, their standing out from their “loci” reflect the “striking features of classical memories”. By following these rules Giotto believed he was following the classical rules for creating memorable images (Yates:66). Figure 2. From left to right: Charity, Inconstancy, Wrath, Desperation. Frescoes by Giotto, Arena Capella, Padua. 2. State of the Art 11 Johannes Romberch, a Dominican monk from the sixteenth century published a treatise on memory in 1533. He states, with reference to Cicero and Thomas Aquinas, that “spiritual and simple intentions slip easily from the soul [unless they are linked with certain] corporeal similitudes” (Romberch in Yates 1966:74). Yates explains “This manuscript also shows plans of memory rooms, marked with five places, four in the corners and one in the centre, on which images are to be memorised” (1966:109). These places tended to be abbeys, their courtyards, libraries and chapels. The images, preferably in human form, said Romberch, should be striking and impacting and he makes considerable reference to Thomas on similitudes. However, if we fail to have many illustrations depicting these similitudes it is because of the belief that “we have to construct our own” (1966:117). Figure 3. Human Image on a Memory Locus. From Romberch, Congestorium artificiose memorie, ed. of 1533 (Yates 1966:118). One of the cases where artificial memory illustrations are shown in a work appears in this same treatise by Romberch. It depicts the use of “visual alphabets” and explains aspects of one of the liberal arts: grammar. We see the symbolic figure of Gramatica with her usual accompaniments of the ladder and scalpel. On or around her A gesture-based approach to teaching English as a Second Language 12 are a series of letters, each of which refer to a visual alphabet, one of birds the other of household and craftsman’s tools. Romberch explains that the image helps scholars remember the answer to the question regarding whether grammar is a particular or common science. The word “predication” is recalled by the bird held in her hand (P for pica – woodpecker). The term applicatio, by the aquila (eagle). Continentia, is shown spelt with four letters across her chest using the visual alphabet of tools. There are other symbols she holds from the alphabet reminding the student of other relevant concepts connected to this topic. Yates concludes that Romberch believed that these embellished images including letters from visual alphabets rather than ordinary writing were “undoubtedly being used as a memory image” (1966:120). Figure 4. Congestorium Artificiose Memorie and example of a Visual Alphabet, ed. of Venice, 1533 in Yates 1966:112-113. In 1658, Comenius published his Orbis Sensualism Pictus. This was the first illustrated children’s language learning textbook or encyclopaedia with copperplate and woodcut prints of a contemporary account of the world from nature to professions, tools, institutions and astronomy. It also included a visual alphabet. Yates suggests it 2. State of the Art 13 was based on an artificial memory work by the Italian philosopher Campanella and his City of the Sun (Citta del sole) “that Utopia of astral magic […] of the city on which the whole world of the creation and of man and his activities was represented in images dependent on the central causal images” (1966:377). This suggests the author’s knowledge of classical artificial memory. Comenius’s Orbis Pictus was used in Germany as a staple school textbook for over a hundred years. Interestingly, these illustrated books for learning which are so common in our present day appear to have origins (as do illustrated alphabet books) which reach back over the centuries as part of complex artificial memory systems where imagery played a major role. On the one hand, Comenius saw his work as simply being more attractive visually: “[…] to entice witty children to it […]. For it is apparent that children (even from their infancy almost) are delighted with Pictures” (1658:XV). On the other hand, he also makes references that reveal knowledge of the classical artificial memory teachings: This same little book will serve to stir up the Attention […] and even to be sharpened more and more […] For the senses […] doth not yet raise up itself to an abstracted contemplation of things evermore seek their own objects and if they be away, they grow dull […] when their objects are present, they grow merry […] (Comenius 1658:XV). Also significantly, “the very looking upon the thing pictured suggesting the name of the thing” (1658:XVI). Comenius also encourages children to imitate the pictures by hand. This is supposedly a reference to drawing and to add colour to the then colourless engravings of the book. Finally, there is an interesting reference in the preface from the translator and Latin teacher, Charles Hoole, of the same era: “To all judicious and industrial schoolmasters” (Hoole in Comenius 1658:XX). He states, “If we could make our words as legible to children as pictures are, their information therefrom would be quickened and A gesture-based approach to teaching English as a Second Language 14 surer. But so we cannot do, though we must do what we can” (Hoole in Comenius 1658:XXVII). The descriptions in this brief history on artificial memory appear relevant to the implementation of an artificial gesture code in the classroom for the purposes of the facilitating memory in an L2 classroom. The allusions to fixed loci and their contribution to memory by associations with “similitudes” could easily be paralleled with fixed (constant) artificial gestures and their connection to a word meaning. The reference to the importance of similitudes of movement and that they should be “striking and impacting” (such as the Giotto frescoes) seems to favour the idea of gesture as a memory reference. The final comments by Comenius and Hoole come tantalisingly close to approximating the possible role of such a gesture tool and what it could achieve in language teaching. To make “our words as legible to children as pictures are” is a significant phrase calling across the centuries for a solution to the difficulties of text to aid learners in recalling words. In modern times such memory techniques or very similar strategies would be explored once more but this time applying rigorous research and modern experimentation techniques. 2.3. Classical memory systems revisited. During the first part of the twentieth century, paradoxically considering the devotion to imagery in artificial memory across the ages, imagery lost its prominent role. In 1913, Watson, “the father of behaviourism”, rejected the importance of imagery; an idea taken not just from experimental evidence but also from philosophical beliefs (Paivio 1969:241). Watson assured us: “Imagery becomes a mental luxury (even if it really exists) without any functional significance whatever […] I should throw out imagery altogether and attempt to show that practically all natural thought goes on in terms of sensori-motor processes in the larynx…” (Watson 1913:160). He suggested 2. State of the Art 15 that we only need to resort to “stimulus and response, in terms of habit formation, habit integrations and the like. […] Those time-honored relics of philosophical speculation need trouble the student of behavior as little as they trouble the student of physics” (1913:160). Other psychologists of the first half of the twentieth century adhered to this view that memory is aided by “implicit [verbal] associates as mediators of stimulusresponse.” As words are objective and manageable, they are not compatible with images that are subjective and inferential (Paivio 1969:242). This irreconcilable view regarding words and images as mediators in thought and memory eventually began to undergo a demise. In 1965, Deese made the point that implicit verbal processing is on a par with the processing of imagery and that the former is no less inferential than the latter (Deese 1965). As Paivio expresses it: “one’s verbal response could just as logically be mediated by a ‘mental picture’ as by ‘mental words’” (1969:242). The view of the importance of imagery as a possible mediator took on fresh impetus and was combined with criticism of the traditional behaviourist stance by psychologists such as Bower 1967, Bugelski, Kidd & Segman 1968, Smith and Noble 1965, Rohwer 1966, Wood 1967. Paivio’s article explains the results of a number of experiments with images and memory. Most of this work centres on the relationship between combined images (paired associates) which bring about recall. In practice, one system Paivio quotes is the “one-bun, two-shoe, three-tree, four-door…” system (1969:244). The user relates an object, say “chair”, to the bun using “bizarre images” so that when “one” is evoked both “bun” and “chair” are recalled. In this way, objects can be remembered either in order or extracted from a list using the number/image as a stimulus or “conceptual peg”: Number + stimulus image (“conceptual peg”)  response member A gesture-based approach to teaching English as a Second Language 16 Indeed, we find ourselves confronted with similar memory system concepts of classical times: Locus (eg. from a familiar building) + similitude  response member Paivio wanted to discover to what point inferential imagery could operate in memory recall and at which juncture (if any) the user resorted to implicit verbal mediators. The underlying concept of Paivio’s article is that concrete nouns are more likely to produce sensory images that serve as more effective mediators in associative learning. On the other hand, abstract nouns, it was reasoned would not provide such “solid” conceptual pegs as concrete nouns (Paivio 1969:244). Paivio carried out a series of experiments which indeed showed this assumption to be true. Despite this evidence, the question constantly nagged Paivio as to whether concreteness could also lead to verbal symbolic processes and that these verbal mediators are responsible in recall (1969:243). He concluded however, that “it is apparent that concreteness-imagery is a major dimension of word meaning – or at least noun meaning […] this dimension is the most potent one yet identified among familiar words” (1969:247). 2.3.1. Research on memory, mnemonics and imagery. Further interesting work has been carried out by Chase and Ericsson (1981) who studied a skilled memory expert (referred to as SF in the paper). During a longitudinal experiment over two years, the subject managed to increase his ability to remember series of digits from seven to eighty – a feat never before equalled. By closely working with SF, the researchers learnt that he was applying a mnemonic system to facilitate the entire process of encoding, storage and retrieval (Chase and Ericsson 1981:149). He was creating “meaningful associations” of groups of numbers into semantic categories the subject was familiar with such as running times (SF was an accomplished long-distance runner). On first consideration, the system seems vague and one doubts the ability to 2. State of the Art 17 remember multiple random sets of numbers at one hearing relying on such an insubstantial system. However, SF was able to bring in, by familiarity with the subject of running and other numerically related topics such as ages and historic dates, numerable associations to facilitate the task (1981:165). More relevant to the subject of this thesis, yet closely related to the above experiment, and also expounded in the article by Chase and Ericsson, are when such “meaningful associations” are applied particularly to imagery. The authors refer to Paivio and his work on “concreteness”, stating that the very same concepts were fundamental to SF’s mnemonic technique. However, with imagery, the concept is more easily analysed and explained. A comparison is made with these two statements. “The cow kicked the ball.” “Truth is good.” The authors illustrate the first phrase and how it is easier to remember than the second by presenting a link-node structure to explain the “set of procedures in semantic memory [that are] activated” when somebody is presented with the “the cow kicked the ball” phrase (1981:161). A gesture-based approach to teaching English as a Second Language 24 output stages. The target items for memorisation were complete but simple sentences (subject – verb – object) which Saltz and Dixon claimed were retrievable from exposure to the verb only. They reasoned that a sentence such as: “The doctor fell asleep on the chair” could revolve around the focus on “fell asleep”, which in turn could serve as a retrieval cue of the subject and object parts of the sentence. Anyone asked to act out the sentence could do little more than sit down and let their head drop to their chest. Subjects were given a set of phrases which they were asked to repeat once and then act out. A second control group would just repeat the sentences twice with no enactment. Then at the output stage, half of the students from each group were asked to retrieve the full sentence from exposure to the verb only while the other half of each group were requested to act out the verb cue in order to recall the full sentences. It was found that the subjects who enacted the phrases at the input stage scored significantly higher than when there was no enactment and interestingly, the adults produced higher scores than the children on this count. Enactment at output only failed to serve as an effective memory retrieval cue compared to retrieval via verbal cues. The case that the critical moment for enhanced recall effectiveness was at the moment of storage, rather than at retrieval has also been supported in several experiments by Klein and Saltz (1976) and by Postman et al. (1978). In a second experiment, Saltz and Dixon presented the subjects with lists of nouns and verbs and demonstrated how they could be enacted by providing an example, ie. “monkey” was acted out by waving arched arms while the verb “to climb” was shown to be a hand over hand moving upwards action. Again, subjects were placed in groups where they either enacted the words or, as in the case of the control group, simply repeated the words twice. A further group was included which were asked at 2. State of the Art 25 input to visualize the word they heard without any motoric enactment. They were shown how to achieve this in a similar instruction as for the enactment subjects but via visualising rather than physically enacting. This second experiment was termed “free recall” as no retrieval cues were provided at the end but subjects were requested to attempt to memorise as many words as possible. The results showed that whereas motoric imagery gave significant results for free recall, imagery alone failed to reach such significant levels. The difference between the children’s results and the adult’s was not appreciable in this experiment. Regarding recall of nouns and verbs, the latter scored slightly higher but without reaching significant levels. Saltz and Dixon concluded that motoric imagery not only serves as an effective retrieval cue but, furthermore, it is instrumental in free recall where no cue was provided. Imagery, interestingly, (though powerful for paired associates experiments as cited above) was not so successful as an agent during free recall. As the data separating the results for noun versus verb recall was not significant, Saltz and Dixon reason that this suggests that “motoric enactment facilitates memory for the agent of an action as greatly as memory for the action itself” (1982:90). The researchers hypothesise here and refer to earlier experiments (Saltz and Donnenworth, 1981) that “motoric factors are an aspect of verbal meaning systems, and that memory for verbal materials should be facilitated by processing for these motoric components of meaning” (Saltz and Dixon 1982:91). In the light of the above research, the authors proposed that allowing children to engage in pretend play would facilitate cognitive development due to the relationship between motoric imagery and verbal symbols. This, of course, supports claims made A gesture-based approach to teaching English as a Second Language 26 much earlier by Montessori about the benefits of “manipulation” and this conjecture becomes reinforced by experimental research. There are aspects of this research that encourage the consideration of a gesture code for language learning for children (and adults according to Saltz and Dixon’s research). Firstly, that by introducing gestures when presenting new vocabulary in the L2 to learners, we may help them to recall at least the meanings of those gestures at a later enactment (see Allen’s experiment, section 2.5.3.). Secondly, if “free recall” of lexis (recall without a prompt) is stimulated by motoric enactment at the input stage, this factor could be especially useful for second language learning and learner production of the L2 during early fluency communication. 2.5. Gestures and learning. 2.5.1. Nonverbal communication and speech. “Language as an imagery-language dialectic. In this dialectic gestures provide the imagery, and the dialectic itself fuels speech and thought” (McNeil 2005:1). In his well-known work “Gesture and Thought”, McNeil enquires into this combination of natural gesture and its intrinsic relationship with verbal communication. Gesture is used in over ninety percent of discourse and throughout the world’s cultures and languages (McNeil 2005:1). However, the relationship is a dialectic, he states. Speech and gesture share meaning, reiterate and reinforce at times and are so essential for communication that there exists “a tight bond – to the point of fusion” (2005:2). Yet they are quintessentially different and contrasting in nature: gesture is “synthetic” without formal convention whereas speech is “analytic” and follows a rigorous “linear” format with “socially-constituted rules” (2005:2). McNeil’s work and also works by similar researchers such as Vigotsky and Wundt in the 1930’s focus on this theme of how the “dynamic” and “static” allow an interpretation of the nature of utterances. 2. State of the Art 27 It appears that natural gesture may be essential both in the comprehension of messages by the recipient as well as in the initiation of those messages by the interlocutor. Gesture may help to draw out the message in the latter by facilitating thought. This second feature is demonstrated in the much cited example of when we talk on the telephone, we still tend to gesture, or how two blind people will use gesture in conversation despite being aware of the other’s inability to perceive those gestures. Researchers such as Hadar, Dar, and Teitelman (2001); Krauss, Chen, and Gottesman (2000) have forwarded “speech-auxiliary theories” states Gullberg 2006:106. She also suggests that gestures help the interlocutor to retrieve lexis from the mind or, according to Alibali et al. (2000) and Freedman (1977), gestures provide assistance in representing the content of what is said. These theories contrast with “Gesture-speech partnership theories”, where gestures form “an integral part of speech” (Gullberg 2006:106). This theory evokes the alluring assumption that gestures share a similar “cognitive origin” with speech put forward by Kita and Özyürek (2003); McNeill (1992, 2005) or that the intention to produce an utterance stimulates two “modalities” of speech and gesture (De Ruiter 2000; Kendon 2004). In addition, there have been circumstances where gestures have been learnt and transferred from one culture to another. Gullberg has cited Efron’s study of immigrants in New York (Efron 1941, 1972) which, though not a direct study of language acquisition, concluded that “gestural repertoires are not innate but culturally transmitted and learned”. Non-natives knew and understood fewer gestures than native children and therefore gestures are “cultural artefacts that need to be learned” (Gullberg 2006:109). Almost identical results were obtained for other language pairs and settings (Safadi and Valentine 1988; Schneller 1988; Wolfgang and Wolofsky 1991). A gesture-based approach to teaching English as a Second Language 28 A final point to emphasize is that the underlying implication in McNeil’s work regarding natural gesture shows, at least, that it is a means that humans use to communicate and develop thought during verbal communication (Gullberg 2006:107). It is in no way a redundant, nervous habit devoid of communicative function. "Gesture is an integral component of language in this conception, not merely an accompaniment or ornament" (McNeil 2005:1). Furthermore, rather than just an accompaniment to utterance, natural gesture appears to have qualities to stimulate recall and retrieve lexis. Both these qualities are drawn upon during the implementation of GW as a language learning tool. If natural gesture is already, then, an innate communicating trait in humans, its conversion to an artificial means or tool for message conveyance should not prove strange or alien to the students adopting gestures for foreign language learning in the classroom. 2.5.2. Nonverbal communication research in L2 classrooms. Gullberg (2006) puts forward the suggestion that the acquisition of gestures could be studied in the SLA classroom and refers to many others who have indicated the importance of learning target-language gestures: Al-shabbi 1993, Antes 1996, Beattie 1977, Brault 1963, Brunet 1985, Calbris and Montredon 1986, Green 1968, Pennycook 1985, Polo-Figuera 1987, Raffler-Engel 1980a, 1980b; Saitz 1966, Wylie 1985. However, Gullberg says: “[…] remarkably few attempts have been made to empirically study the acquisition of gestures in L2” (2006:109). Other interesting research analysed by Gullberg (2006) has been the work by Hauge (2000) who examined how teachers of English to immigrants in the UK employed gestures in the L2 classroom to illustrate concepts such as present continuous (both hands moving in a circular motion) and these had become “conventionalised” by 2. State of the Art 29 teacher use. The findings showed that some teacher gestures conflicted with natural L1 student gestures and therefore led to confusion among the learners. Another work (Jungheim 1991) attempted to detect how well Japanese students of English learnt naturally occurring gestures in English. It was found that the group under test, which had received an explanation of how gesture worked, became more adept at recognising gestures than the group who had to learn them through exposure only (Gullberg 2006:111). The relevance of these studies is significant for the adaptation of GW in the classroom. These studies have shown that despite the natural and even subconscious usage of gestures in one’s own language, the same spontaneity to use foreign gestures cannot occur across languages. However, learners have responded to explicit teaching of gestures used in other languages and cultures and learned to recognise and use them alongside the L2 language they are developing. Such a scenario appears to suggest there could be fertile and receptive ground for an artificial gesture language such as GW. The use of gestures to compensate for expressing difficult or awkward concepts has been pointed out previously: “it is quite clear that L2 learners can and do use gesture to compensate for linguistic problems” (Gullberg 2006:111). This phenomenon occurs not just in SL classrooms but across many disciplines and situations. It has also been shown that learners of a second language will gesture more than when speaking their own tongue: Hadar et al. 2001; Marcos 1979; Nobe 2001. Furthermore, Gullberg (1998), observed in a study of what she termed “communicative strategies” that students used these compensatory gestures not only for expressing difficult lexis but also for grammatical complexities. Indeed, gestures may help ease “cognitive load” as has been suggested by Goldin-Meadow et al. (2001), Goldin-Meadow (2003). A gesture-based approach to teaching English as a Second Language 30 McCafferty (2002) examined the interactional effect of learners’ gestures, and showed that gesture actually facilitated interaction between native and non-natives. Gestures were used to prolong the conversation in progress and indicate that the speakers had not yet finished their turn. Gestures assist in maintaining meaning during the complexities of teacher to student or student to student communication as Gullberg states clearly: “the troublesome interaction that results from accumulated difficulties and non-fluency can also be managed gesturally” (2006:112). Swain (2000) had also suggested that gestures may be vital for extending spoken discourse and thereby served as an aid to L2 language acquisition. With regard to gesture, meaning and communicative compensation, Gullberg had this to say (included here as a full quote as a substantial proportion of the GW technique will closely address these issues). In general, insofar as the compensatory nature of L2 gesture is considered, it is mostly illor un-defined. Issues that need to be clarified include the assumed relationship between speech and gesture, whether compensation and facilitation is assumed to be mainly for the native interlocutor, for learners themselves or indeed for both, and at what linguistic level compensation is assumed to take place – e.g., at the level of formulating words, at the conceptual level, at the interactional level, etc. All of these issues are important theoretical concerns in the field of gesture study, but are equally important – and familiar – to the field of SLA (2006:112). Comments on the points raised in this quote will be given in the Results section 5.8.8. of this thesis. 2.5.3. Gestures for input and recall. Studies have gone further than analysing the spontaneous use of natural gesture in the L2 classroom and have advocated explicit input of gesture to facilitate L2 language learning. For example, in studies by Beattie (1977), Kellerman (1992), Allen (1995), Harris (2003), Lazaraton (2004), it has been suggested that gestures should be brought into the classroom to help with listening comprehension. Sueyoshi and Hardison (2005) found that using gestures improved student comprehension of oral L2 2. State of the Art 31 input in the classroom. Others have concluded that using gestures to input information helps students to enhance learning in general: Goldin-Meadow et. al (1999) in mathematics and Roth (2003) in science. Krashen makes references to the importance of consciously introduced gestures in L2 classrooms (1981, 1982) while Lazaraton (2004) suggested that gestures may help foreign language vocabulary retention. Suggestions have been put forward to explain why retention may be higher with gesture. Such suggestions are that gestures may help to capture attention, provide salience to redundancy or by “grounding speech in the concrete, physical experience”. (Hostetter and Alibali 2004 in Gullberg 2006:115). Allen’s article (1995) refers to Terrell (1986) and his concept of “binding”, where new lexis seen written or heard also requires a “mental representation”, two “cognitive steps” to internalize the language. A process of “mapping” is required; "the ability to access meaning-form connections held in memory, to process them automatically, and to articulate them in real-life discourse" (Garret 1991:79 in Allen 1995:521). A greater depth of processing information can be achieved by elaborating the initial presentation of the information to be taught with other extralinguistic cues such as pictures and demonstrations, also gestures and mime are mentioned by Omaggio (1986), Wong-Fillmore (1985), and Long (1989). The same article by Allen (1995) also mentions the work by Tulving and Thomson (1973) and their “encoding specificity principle”. This states that the same mental representation with which information is presented can also be used to retrieve the same from learners. A quote states: "contextual conditions are part of the encoding environment and therefore act as effective retrieval cues" (Tulving and Thomson 1973:41 in Allen 1995:522). Allen seized on this principle to develop an experiment involving L2 French language learning and gesture stating that Tulving and Thomson opined that the greater the depth of processing the better the retention: “Thus, the A gesture-based approach to teaching English as a Second Language 32 present study hypothesised that students who were provided with emblematic gestures at the time of presentation would recall more French expressions than students who were not provided with the gestures”. Allen also states that despite the “abundance” of literature on the subject of using gestures to facilitate learning in L2 training, “no empirical studies” had been carried out to offer evidence of a relationship between enhanced foreign language learning and gesture input (1995:522). However, the application of Tulving and Thomson’s principle had been applied experimentally in other fields. Woodall and Folger (1981, 1985) carried out tests and found that when a gesture is provided together with a sentence, the same gesture can be used to retrieve that sentence and that retention was higher among participants who received gestures compared to those who did not. It was also found that the type of gesture mattered; those with semantic meaning proved more useful to retention and recall of sentences than those that were more abstract. The monolingual experiment by Riseborough (1981) introduced a list of verbs together with physiographic3 gestures and found that one group of participators were able to recall more verbs via eliciting with gestures than the group who received either no gestures or “vague gestures” (Allen 1995:522). This is an interesting reference to “vague” gestures and coincides with Woodall and Folger’s findings regarding “abstract gestures”. Many natural gestures, from the receiver’s point of view, are vague or nonemblematic (abstract in appearance) by nature. This research therefore suggests that for the purposes of input and recall of L2 lexis, an artificial iconic gesture code would be preferable if we are to take heed of the above findings. In her experiment, Allen (1995) intentionally introduced and taught gestures to accompany input of French phrases with a group of beginner learners and claimed that 3 According to Allen, “physiographic” gestures are either iconographic showing size and shape or kineographic gestures showing movement and correspond to her “emblematic” gestures (Allen 1995:527). 2. State of the Art 33 retention of the French phrases was higher in the experimental group students, who were enacting the gestures, compared to a control group who simply had the phrases repeated to them by the instructor. However, to a certain extent, Allen’s experiment proves disappointing. She detached the learner from contact with pronunciation and utterance of the French phrases. Students were not required to say the utterances in French at all - only to listen to them. One would assume such an omission reduces the bonding between phrase assimilation and retention. Allen justifies this by apparently referring to James Asher’s research (1969), which recommends a “silent period” for beginner students and Allen’s students were “first-semester” therefore beginners. If she had chosen a group a little more advanced (A2/B1) level, perhaps uttering the phrases could have been justified and therefore a link between spoken French and the gesture influence evaluated. In fact, as is made clear in the article: “The English meaning, not the French words, is most probably represented in memory for them” (Allen 1995:524). Furthermore, due to the low level in French, Allen then states that the students did not yet have the written skills in French orthography to represent the phrases in written form so allows them to write the English equivalent. This explains the results that a third “comparison group” (not the control “no gesture” group) which were provided with the gestures only on the final eliciting test, gave similar results as the experimental group who received gestures throughout. These omissions mean that the relationship between SLlearning and gesture for improved recall was not wholly addressed, or only indirectly. One questions the accuracy of the study as offering advice to educators: “the elaboration of expressions with contextual emblematic gestures significantly affected students' recall of French expressions” (1995:527). A gesture-based approach to teaching English as a Second Language 40 storage for retrieval anytime in the future” (1977:1-18). This “structure” had to be a “cause-effect relationship” hypothesised Asher; the foreign word transferred directly to the mind by motoric actions. Asher is emphatic that TPR is suitable for learners of all ages. His tests include comparisons between different age groups: very young children, teenagers and adults. He concludes, “older children outperform younger children. Fourteen year-olds had better retention than ten year olds, and ten-year-olds were somewhat better than eight year-olds” (2009:9). Regarding adults, he states: “it should be pointed out that although adults will outperform children in understanding a new language when everyone learns in the context of play, which is the essence of TPR, children younger than puberty have a "biological" advantage in acquiring a native pronunciation of the new language (Asher and Garcia 1969). 2.6.3. The co-grammatical gestures of Lapaire. Lapaire’s work on gestures is based on explorations of an epistemic view of language. He quotes much from Jousse (1974) and the discovery of deeper meanings of language structures through guided intervention between instructor and student (in this case nine to eleven-year-olds). This intervention is termed a “co-verbal gesture replay”, where gestures “not only accompany but co-perform with certain operations of a grammatical nature” (Lapaire 2013:58). Lapaire showed a video to a group of nine-year-olds and of a short conversation where one man interviews a rap singer and asks “You might be doing a film clip maybe?” During this utterance, the interviewer folds his arms, holding the finger tips together and pointing his fingers towards the face of the rap singer. The hands sway from one side to the other. Lapaire believes this movement exteriorises one of the “balancements gestuels” [gestural balancing] or “symbolisms du movement alternés” 2. State of the Art 41 [symbols of alternating movement] as identified by Calibris and Porcher (1989:106108). This mental “wavering” (Lapaire 2013:63) depicts a “spectacle grammatical” [grammar show] that all speakers produce subconsciously and that a spectator can observe and even re-enact. This grammatical reference was introduced by Lapaire as he interprets such gestures as showing certain modalities present in the English language such as “might” or “maybe”. The positioning of the body during the execution of a gesture such as described above, Lapaire calls a “modal stance”. The children are first asked to mimic the gesture they see in the video together with the slight swaying from side to side in what he calls a “replay”. The teacher also demonstrates the movement with bodily variations depending on the intonation employed, proof, says Lapaire, that we are experiencing a true “gestualité coverbale” [co-verbal gesture] whose energy is “reflected in the spoken word” (2013:65). The experiment continues with the children drawing the postures and using a pencil illustrating the direction and movement of the hands and body. Lapaire concludes that the rationale behind this activity is to explore a “rhythmmimic replay” (2013:70) where co-grammatical gesture allows the learner/player to absorb the meaning of grammar without undergoing a “conscious intellectual study”; an understanding both “corporal and mental, concrete and abstract of the epistemic modality” (2013:71). A gesture-based approach to teaching English as a Second Language 42 Gesture for “can” (permission and ability) Ça marche [you can go] Gesture for “can’t” (permission and ability) Ça bloque [you can’t pass] Figures 8 and 9. Lapaire’s gestures expressing grammar modals: “can” and “can’t”. (Lapaire 2006 DVD and YouTube source.) Lapaire has taken this approach forward to develop other gestures and motoric movement which explain the workings of English grammar concepts for non-native students. He calls the corporal interaction clips “KineGrams” and has published a DVD to accompany the book (2006). Lapaire believes these KineGrams are useful when reenacted by the students or just shown to them for comment and can serve in comprehending L2 English grammar concepts better while avoiding translation and the lengthy verbiage of explicit instruction. Gesture alone without spoken comment is visually explicative (Lapair 2006). 2.6.4. The Silent Way (Caleb Gattegno) “Tell me and I forget, teach me and I remember, involve me and I learn.” This quote from Benjamin Franklin is the underlying adage of Caleb Gattegno’s Silent Way technique for SL teaching. The publication of the same name appeared in 1963 and offered an alternative to the then much used Audiolingual Method. The main tenet of Gattegno’s philosophy to foreign language teaching was that the teacher should be as 2. State of the Art 43 unobtrusive as possible by limiting verbal input and the learners encouraged to produce oral L2: “Teaching should be subordinate to learning” (Stevick 2007:1). There is an emphasis on learner responsibility during study and resorting to their personal resources to achieve this. This premise is achieved by the teacher being involved as little as possible in telling learners what to say and minimising overt correction of errors. Emphasis is placed on the learner discovering and being creative with language rather than imposing stress on memorisation and repetition. Comprehension and assimilation of grammar is assumed to take place by the student being involved in taking his/her own decisions about language based on observation and participation. Gattegno referred to an “inner criteria” which allowed these processes to take place in the mind. In these respects, the Silent Way encapsulates beliefs in stark contradiction to the Audiolingual Method. In the Silent Way, speech and action are intrinsically combined. The teacher typically uses Cuisenaire rods (also invented by Gattegno in 1954 for his maths classes), which are arranged and moved about on the table by the teacher (and occasionally by the students) and provide the basis of the L2 material to be produced orally. Meaning and action are directly related and interact one with the other. There exists, therefore, parallels between the Silent Way and TPR and this has also been pointed out by Stevick: “At all times speech is accompanied by appropriate action (generally consisting of manipulation of the rods), and action is accompanied by appropriate speech. The method thus has one of the characteristics which the Total Physical Response experiments showed to be so desirable for establishing durable comprehension" (2007:2). Further similarities can be found between the Silent Way and TPR in how Asher takes into account the practicalities of classroom management and the presumed A gesture-based approach to teaching English as a Second Language 44 difficulty at times to engage learners in action and moving around the classroom. Aware of practical space limitations, Asher designed complementary activities which allowed learners to confine actions to their chairs. He devised the idea of TPR student kits. Miniature cardboard models for each student, for example, a miniature kitchen with its various parts that learners can manipulate without moving from where they are sitting (Asher 2009:48). The manipulative nature is now thus comparable to the Cuisenaire rods of the Silent Way or rather, in the latter approach, learners at least watch such manipulation. This same consideration regarding the possible impracticalities of having children freely moving around a classroom is significant. Gestures can be performed seated so allowing the teacher to contain possible scenarios of control loss due to energetic and over-eager young learners yet maintain the environment of physical interaction with oral language. As the corrective influence of the teacher is almost absent or inconspicuous during a Silent Way class (though the teacher may use other students to correct their peers) and the meaning to oral interaction with the language is immediate, it follows that errors in production will be frequent. Again, this is contrary to the philosophy behind the Audiolingual Method which proposed “accuracy before fluency” and supported “dogmas […] comparatively unenlightened […] Gattegno’s own view on production was ‘perfection at once’ is the great imperfection of most teaching” (Stevick 2007:3). Stevick (2007) also points out in his comment on Gattegno’s second edition on the Silent Way (1972), a juxtaposition between silence, comprehension and memory (not to be confused with memorisation – the conscious act). 2. State of the Art 45 New auditory material is retained for about twenty seconds in a state in which it is available for inspection and even rehearsing, something like a loop of tape, or like a small worktable on which bits of new and old material may be assembled, sorted and rearranged (Stevick 2007:3). Silence after auditory input then compels and provides learners with maximum opportunity to process or internally rehearse new language. Stevick compares this scenario with “most of our methods”, where a “barrage of utterances from teacher and fellow students” produce significant interference in this process (2007:3). It is interesting to note that despite the absence of explicit instruction during Silent Way classes with reference to grammar and oral production, importance is given to pronunciation. Gattegno designed his own coloured word charts showing the structural vocabulary of the language and the “Fidel”, showing in colour the various English phonemes related to coloured rectangles for reference at any given moment during the class via a pointer. Perhaps paradoxically, considering the name of the method and contrary to the beliefs of TPR, there is no Silent Period in Silent Way language courses. Such a premise, also vigorously supported by Krashen (1982), insists on the requirement for assimilation of language before oral production. On the other hand, the Silent Way appears not to be insistent and demanding on learner’s taking charge of their own fluency during early stages of learning; production, although allowing creativity is controlled by the situations dictated by the Cuisenaire rods on the table. Figure 10. Typical class scene from the Silent Way with Donald E. Cherry. (YouTube video still: YouTube TPR adults.) A gesture-based approach to teaching English as a Second Language 46 2.6.5. The Accelerative Integrated Method (AIM). The Accelerative Integrated Method (AIM), based on the use of hand gestures, was developed by Wendy Maxwell during the mid nineteen-nineties. It was a response to the poor national results in L2 development obtained in co-educational schools among English-speaking Canadian children learning French. Maxwell was “frustrated with the current core French programmes. She found students rarely achieved fluency even after years of instruction” (2002:1 The National Post. Internet source). However, after implementing AIM in her school, Maxwell found that “a large percentage of my students are indeed reaching relatively high levels of fluency within the limited hours of a core French program” (Maxwell 2001:1). Maxwell’s concern for a methodology that accelerated language acquisition was important as the hours of instruction allotted to the French core programme meant that time was a prohibitive factor to learning: “There are many other elements that need to be present in a program that effectively help students to acquire a language within a limited number of instructional hours” (2001:13). “[…] my main interest during the first one to two hundred hours of instruction is to accelerate fluency” (2001:52). The method involves various didactic facets, one of which is the use of a gesture hand sign code adapted from American Sign Language for presenting and eliciting spoken French in the classroom. Communication and comprehension is maintained to an extent that the written word is not introduced until about “two months” after course initiation (2002 The Brampton Guardian. Internet source.). The teacher in question here explained “you don’t start writing words that have zero meaning for you”. Maxwell found that the use of gestures provided a context of “holistic” language in the classroom. Other facets of AIM are the use of songs, drama and stories where students can put the language into practice in a communicative way. According to the newspaper 2. State of the Art 47 Le Soleil (2002) AIM is being experimented with in some 3,500 schools across Canada as well as school in the US, Australia and Europe. Figure 11. Teachers training to use gestures during an AIM training programme (Le Soleil 2002). In Maxwell’s own study she compares fluency levels between students taken from an AIM course and another group following the Ontario Ministry of Education and Training core French programme. Maxwell criticised elements of the core French programme such as the insistence on instruction including the teaching of “noun-centred thematic chunks”. Instead Maxwell preferred “high-frequency lexical elements” especially an emphasis on the use of verbs and where possible and feasible a more accessible L2 she called pared-down language (PDL). Furthermore that “flashy fourcoloured images” accompanied by very little text in the coursebooks provided students with very little language for communicative interaction. Instead Maxwell wished to achieve an abundance of content-rich and high frequency language and provide a comprehensible input language context in the school classroom (Maxwell 2001:1-2). Maxwell admits that the nature of her research was of an “exploratory nature” and that “there was no strict comparison between the experimental and comparison groups, because no pre-tests were given.” Furthermore she suggests that the two groups of nine students involved in the experiment were “too small to be of statistical A gesture-based approach to teaching English as a Second Language 48 consequence”. Notwithstanding, she believed that “certain inferences” could be made on the subject of “relative levels of fluency” (Maxwell 2001:20). The students were taken from two groups of nine; one group that had followed an AIM course and a comparison group from a co-educational school of similar age, number of instruction hours (about two-hundred), socioeconomic group and genders. Three performance levels were taken from lowest, mid-range and highest achievers (according to teacher criteria) from both groups. The comparative test comprised a number of scaffolded oral interview questions and an analysis of student answers based on the number of correct responses and the number of correct French words used excluding oui, no and proper names. A further area analysed was a comparison of the two groups’ abilities in story-telling in French. Results showed positive results for the AIM group regarding L2 knowledge and language communicative skills in all tests and especially in story-telling where they: “far exceeded those of the comparison group”. An average number of words used by the comparison group of 29.66 compared to an average of 534 words by the AIM group. The low-level group students from the control plus three other students were not able to produce any L2 at all (2001:27). 2. State of the Art 49 Figure 12. Results table from Maxwell’s research (2001:33). Maxwell concluded that none of the students from the comparison group were able to produce answers at length in response to the interview of open questions and neither tell stories extensively while the AIM group performed significantly better in these fluency tasks as AIM “students have the option to choose to sustain a lengthy or limited discourse” (2001:35-36). During the collating of the data from the two groups, Maxwell fails to determine to what extent gesture instruction, which is actually termed separately as the “Gesture Approach” is responsible for the results published. The AIM programme is, in fact, an “integrated method” where other didactic practices for French teaching such as “drama, music, songs and story-telling” (Brampton Guardian 2002) are included as language A gesture-based approach to teaching English as a Second Language 56 report as only near or even below European averages and if these are improvements on past performance, they provide insights into presumably lower communicative and linguistic abilities in English among Spaniards prior to the 2011 period. As a consequence of the supposed inferiority or insufficiency of English language competence among students, the Spanish began to seek instruction elsewhere. Presumably, this trend was produced by a cause and effect scenario where dissatisfaction of either the quality or non-comprehensive nature of school English instruction in its traditional form brought about a surge towards an interest in alternative and private centres in English language teaching. In the case of primary school children, this decision-taking to seek alternative English instruction must have originated from the parents' initiative. The private English academy Instituto Británico (Seville), according to its website, opened its doors to the public in 1946 to offer “quality English language teaching” (Instituto Británico, 2016, Internet sources). However, the majority of the private English academies in Spain today came into being from the 1970’s onwards. During a random search for English academies in the Seville province the author was unable to find one village that failed to offer this service to the local population. Required qualifications for the teachers who work in these centres seem to vary. Private language training centres in Spain are not bound by the regulations of the regional government, such as, for example, in Andalusia by the Consejería de Educación y Ciencia decree 175/1993 of the Regional Andalusian Government (ACEIA, 2015, Internet source). However, some of the larger academies have joined a “quality control” organisation such as ACEIA (Asociación de Centros de Enseñanza de Idiomas de Andalucía) [Association of Andalusian language teaching centres] thereby proposing a public commitment to service quality. On the other hand, the ten 2. State of the Art 57 commandment-like conditions laid down in the ACEIA website offer rather vague requisites as to teaching qualifications and experience: “El profesorado constará de personas competentes y especializadas en la enseñanza de los idiomas que imparten” [The teaching staff will comprise competent persons and specialists in the languages they teach] (ACEIA, 2015, Internet sources). While the English Language Institute, Seville, an ACEIA affiliated centre, claim that their teachers: 1) have at least one year’s prior experience before starting work, 2) hold the Trinity TESOL or Cambridge CELTA exams. The CELTA course is intensive yet only four weeks instruction with no enrolment requirements other than holding a degree and not necessarily relevant to pedagogy or language teaching. A comparison with primary or secondary school English teachers in Spain leave the minimum requirements laid down by the private sector vastly wanting knowing that the Spanish school counterpart will hold at least a three-year teacher training qualification for primary teachers (magisterio) and for secondary schools, a five-year English philology degree in addition to the one-year CAP (Curso de Adaptación Pedagógica) [Course of Pedagogic Adaptation] qualification. One assumes anyone following such lengthy preparation to become an English teacher in a Spanish school must also bring an accompanying sense of vocation. The statement of quality laid down in ACEIA’s web that they “comprometen a ofrecer una enseñanza eficaz, realista y moderna” [are committed to offering teaching which is efficient, realistic and modern] leaves one wondering what these terms actually mean and the nature of the quality criteria ACEIA centres stand for. It may also be significant to note that ACEIA is only home to some seventy member academies across Andalusia. Perhaps the most prolific and successful of the many online courses and optional intensive classroom courses are run by the US teacher and entrepreneur Richard A gesture-based approach to teaching English as a Second Language 58 Vaughan (Internet source – Richard Vaughan). Many of these courses are officially recognised and promoted by the Spanish Ministerio de Educación [Ministry of Education] (Navarro 2013:113). Claims state that over 20,000 students are following the courses with some 400 teachers under contract and the company boasts an annual turnover of some 20 million euros (2012 Richard Vaughan – Internet resources). An analysis of the situation in Spain regarding English language learning concludes that despite the present crisis, the general public are spending more time and money on English study. There is a general belief that the official level exams in English (B1, B2 especially) are essential for improving or even just accessing one’s future career development. Private study of English with a view to obtaining these much sought-after qualifications is considered to be an essential and worthwhile personal investment (New Statesman 2013 – Internet sources). Interestingly, the Vaughan courses follow the outdated Audiolingual Method - shunned in recent times by much mainstream language instructional thinking (Navarro 2013). 2.7.2. Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL). Referred to as CLIL, Bilingual Education Programme (BEP) or simply educación bilingüe [bilingual education], Content and Language Integrated Learning first took root in Spain in 1993/94. The CLIL approach came into existence during the 1970s but the term was not coined until 1994 by David Marsh. Marsh (2000) defined CLIL as: “This approach involves learning subjects such as History, Geography or others, through an additional language. It can be very successful in enhancing the learning of languages and other subjects, and developing in the youngsters a positive “can do” attitude towards themselves as language learners” (2000:2). 2. State of the Art 59 CLIL has now become an official approach for curriculum education in Andalusia (since 2005) reinforced by the Spanish Education Ministry’s policy of developing students’ communicative competence laid down in Spain’s Organic Law of Education 2/2006. Every year more schools are incorporated into the programme if and when they comply with the stipulated requirements. CLIL extends exposure of English to school students in both primary and secondary by introducing the language as a unique means of communication in subjects other than English language. The sciences, Music and Art are taught in English by teachers who must hold a minimum B2 level qualification. Such an approach is seen to be feasible for “mainstream” rather than “elite” education settings; a way to learn English for “the Millie Molly Mandys of the world”. Furthermore, CLIL is considered practical as the subject matter is relevant to the students. “It's not a matter of having students learning now for use later but having students learning now to use now" (Marsh 2014 - YouTube source). Lasagabaster (2008) quotes work by Hellekjaer in Norway that suggests that CLIL programmes in secondary education can improve students’ reading skills and therefore assist students in managing English textbooks later on at university level. The study’s findings were that 74% of the CLIL learners scored satisfactorily on the IELTS Reading for Academic Purposes Module Test compared to only 33% for non-CLIL learners. According to Lasagabaster et al., Spain is leading Europe in its implementation of CLIL in schools (2010:viii). For both CLIL elementary students as well as secondary students in Spain, better language competency levels were obtained than for non-CLIL students, especially in written comprehension according to the conclusions in the study by Gallardo del Puerto and Martínez Adrián (2013). They also state that CLIL does not seem to have a negative impact on children’s performance in content subjects. A gesture-based approach to teaching English as a Second Language 60 Studies suggests that CLIL students attain similar or even better results than non-CLIL students learning subject content in their L1 (Bonnet 2012, Coyle 2010, Dalton-Puffer 2007 and Meyer 2009). This is more noticeable in the case for skillsbased learning than the learning of facts, which may be owing to the enhanced interaction often present in good CLIL classrooms (Coyle 2010). No decline in written Spanish ability for CLIL students was detected in Spain’s BEP (Bilingual Education Programme) groups (Dobson et al. 2010). There was also a study comparing BEP students with non-BEP students which showed that the performance of the students in the BEP groups was significantly better than that of those in the non-BEP groups. Only 25% of the BEP students’ performance was rated as ‘not adequate’ compared with 45% of non-BEP students. On the other hand, Bonnet (2012) argued that in order to be able to comprehend content in CLIL classrooms, students will require a core competency in the subject matter as well as sufficient L2 communicative competence. This means it is essential that learners possess a threshold level in the L2 to manage the subject matter of their classes. Lasagabaster (2008) suggested that the formal settings such as schools appear to benefit older students especially in the short term as they are more mature cognitively (an advantage necessary for test-taking) whereas young learners appear to be less responsive to the implicitness of mere exposure and contact with the foreign language. The absence of structure-based tuition during a CLIL course may mean that learners with a lower cognitive level find implicit learning more difficult. Obtaining linguistic and communicative goals should then be the focus for primary school students (Zydatis 2000). The above comments reveal the necessity of placing extra emphasis on English language tuition to ensure early communicative competence at primary school ages. 2. State of the Art 61 Without previously developed L2 skills obtained before learners enter their teens, CLIL programmes could lose effectiveness. The necessity of English tuition which includes some focus on form has also been pointed out by Nikula et. al (2013). Students make significantly more language errors in CLIL courses than in traditional foreign language programmes as the former are predominantly lexical in nature. Lexical choice and pronunciation of technical terms initially comprise approximately half of all errors and these are also the errors that tend to be addressed most often. Learners’ grammatical errors made during CLIL courses are almost entirely ignored. Other issues negatively affecting successful implementation of CLIL may be due to core L2 competency levels among the teacher populations. For example, in the province of Seville only 187 state primary and secondary schools have been converted to BEP (CLIL method); about a quarter of the total number of schools in the province. According to the ABC newspaper, “…parece que algo está fallando cuando esta implantación es casi excepcional, a tenor del número de centros con dicha catalogación” […it appears something is wrong when this implementation is almost exceptional considering the number of schools with this category rating] (ABC 5/9/2014:26). The issues related to the difficulties of implementing CLIL in state schools appear to be various. One outstanding problem is “el deficit de profesores cualificados” [the lack of qualified teachers] (5/9/2014:27). Suddenly, there has been a demand for teachers of non-language subjects to hold a sufficiently high level of English competence to offer instruction entirely in the L2. CLIL teachers are required to be proficient at language and content, something hardly viable for the vast majority of already established teachers (Cummins 1994) who entered the practice unaware of the necessity of English to successfully exercise their profession. Furthermore, one could question the ethics of approaching teachers and asking them to alter their vocation and A gesture-based approach to teaching English as a Second Language 62 career mission and teach in a foreign language. Apart from the initial willingness required on part of the teacher, materials are still lacking in this area of bilingual instruction meaning many teachers would have to invest extra time and effort into materials production. Another negative point suggested regarding CLIL programmes has been the tendency to abandon bilingual studies during the latter years of school education. The additional obstacle of receiving instruction in a foreign language is not reflected in the qualifications offered to students. One teacher complains: “No hay incentivos en forma de títulos oficiales que puedan motivar a los chicos” [There are no incentives in the form of official qualifications to motívate the children] (ABC Provincia 19/11/2015:2). It has also been stated in the ABC (2014) that despite the introduction of BEP centres, the level of second language learning in Andalusia remains below European averages; a finding interpreted from the 2012 PISA survey although PISA does not directly assess L2 competence. The same article also quotes anonymous “experts” which conclude that the faults lies with “la prevalencia de las destrezas lingüísticas como la lectura y la escritura frente al ‘listening’ y al ‘speaking’” [the prevalence of language skills of reading and writing instead of listening and speaking skills]. Other “experts” talking to the ABC, in this case a state school English teacher, points towards class size and the large numbers of students in the classroom: “No es lo mismo hacer un speaking entre 10 alumnos que con 25, es que simplemente no se puede” [It’s not the same doing a speaking activity with 10 students than with 25 – it’s just not possible] (ABC Sevilla, 5/9/2014:27). According to the ABC (2014), there is a resounding clamour from teachers and parents regarding the poor investment that the Junta de Andalucía is willing or able to provide the educational sector and that the lack of sufficient funding is the cause of all 2. State of the Art 63 our woes. However, the director of the PISA programme, Andreas Schleicher stated: “Ni el mejor de los ministros de educación puede resolver los problemas de los millones de alumnos y los miles de profesores” [Not even the best of educational ministers can resolve the problems of the millions of students and thousands of teachers]. The success of educational reforms will depend to a large extent on teacher autonomy and how these apply that in their classrooms. A comparison is made with Singapore, which scored the highest on the PISA 2012 quality index and where, says Mr Schleicher, teachers have not waited to be told what to do by official sources but rather have adopted the attitude of “qué puede hacer para mejorar” [what can they do to improve] student performance (ABC Sociedad 30/3/2014:78). Summarising, an apparent discrepancy is detectable between a relatively glowing report regarding CLIL programmes and their implementation and CLIL issues and failings at a local level, in particular, it appears, in Andalusia.  Staff shortages due to training deficiency.  Sluggish conversion rate of schools to the BEP.  Lack of student motivation to remain in the CLIL programmes due to additional effort required to obtain the same qualification (especially for secondary schools).  Apparent lack of teacher motivation if we are to heed the comments made in the above issues of the ABC newspaper.  Lastly, with reference to the above research mentioned, there are concerns that younger learners in primary schools may find CLIL programmes offer language requirements over and above their capabilities. It is assumed that methodological programmes in state schools intended for national mainstream education should be accessible to all schools and students and that regional A gesture-based approach to teaching English as a Second Language 64 and local variances related to economical issues (especially regional funding to schools) should not become stumbling blocks. 2.7.3. Disparities between educational levels and Spain’s regions. In December 2016, the new Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development OECD PISA report reflects similar results to the 2012 findings. PISA is not an assessment of L2 skills but reveals competences in science, reading and mathematics among a selection of state and partially state funded (concertado) schools. On a national level, Spain apparently improved perceptibly on the 2012 scores yet still remained at an approximate OECD average, which prompted Iñigo Méndez de Vigo, head of the Spanish Education Ministry, to make this bold statement about Spanish education: “[this latest PISA report] rompe la brecha educativa y se sitúa por primera vez en la historia, al nivel de los países más avanzados del mundo” [breaks the educational mould and it is now situated, for the first time in history, among the most advanced countries in the world] (El País Spain 7/12/2016). Notwithstanding, this same newspaper then points out that Spain’s apparent improvement in the educational rating is due to a slight decrease in scores of the neighbouring industrial nations. For the first time in 2016, a regional breakdown was made available and these figures could be considered revealing if not disturbing. Figure 14. PISA 2016 autonomous regional results in (from left to right) science, reading comprehension and mathematics (El Pais Spain 7/12/2016:23). 2. State of the Art 65 There emerges evidence of a distinct north-south divide according to these regional scores of educational competences in schools (Figure 14). Twelve regions are situated above the OECD average and five below – Andalusia either in final or penultimate position according to the skills being tested. At first glance, these results appear to coincide with income per capita ratings: Castilla - La Mancha, Murcia and Andalusia fall below the European 75% mean. However, Castilla y León with 1.300 euros less per capita than the European average and Galicia in a similar impoverished situation share similar PISA ratings with Finland. Such glowing results, according to Fernando Rey, regional minister for Castilla y León, are due to “el resultado de una enorme eficiencia con recursos ajustados” [the result of an enormous efficiency with tightly limited funding]. Also to be considered are regional social problems such as those pertinent to Andalusia where, states the article, “pesa la alfabetización de las anteriores generaciones, que fue muy escasa en el sur de España” [literacy learning, previously scarce, negatively affects people from earlier generations] (El País España 7/12/2016:23). El País informs us that the PISA report emphasises the difficulty in drawing comparisons from one country to the next and even one school to the next and arriving at conclusions “plantea numerosos desafíos” [supposes numerous challenges] (El País España 7/12/2016:22). Factors mentioned include the educational level of parents or the number of students failing and thereby repeating courses. However, according to this same newspaper there is one aspect where all are in agreement - the professional improvement of teaching staff. Andreas Schleicher (educational director of the OECD) commented again on Spain’s position regarding educational standards. Although, he says, there is no easy answer for Spain, this country should reduce the amount of time on excessive legislation and regulations, which have deviated attention from achieving A gesture-based approach to teaching English as a Second Language 72 practice (there were fears of having a mixed-level group that could affect performance during the course) but owing to the availability of only one teacher. Similar action was taken when selecting the sixth-year group. Nineteen students were selected at random from the sixth-year course 6A (from some twenty-five students in all) by selecting from the top downwards in the school class register and a similar procedure to select the same profile of academy students as in the experimental group. Fortunately, eight similar profile supplementary English academy instruction students were found and included in the final group of nineteen control group students. These sub-divisions within the main groups are termed during this thesis as “non-academy” and “academy” students. Table 1: Resulting experimental and control group composition. From year/course 5A and 5B experimental group From year and course 6A control group Nº of students attending local private English academies for one year or more. 8 8 Students not currently attending private tuition in English. 11 11 Total Nº of students. 19 19 3.1.3. Pre-tests and post-test arrangements. Although uppermost in the mind of the author were considerations regarding speaking skill development and communicative abilities in English, a barrage of tests was eventually decided upon covering the four “skills”: writing, reading, listening and speaking. A pre-test was devised to discover present L2 levels of both the experimental and control groups. The pre-test was carried out at the end of September 2014. The speaking pre-tests were carried out by the TR in the school library and students attended in pairs by appointment. The set-up of the speaking tests resembled that of the 3. Methods 73 Cambridge English speaking exam tests. Students were required to complete various oral activities; each task similar (though not the same) for each student and by alternating who started the pair of tasks, advantages of students copying the cocandidate’s format in replies were equalled throughout the test overall (see annexe A8.2. for oral pre-test design.) The written pre-test on morphemic structures, a reading comprehension and controlled writing test, was invigilated by the Pedro Primero school English teacher during normal English class hours. Strict instructions were given to teachers to ensure copying did not occur – the TR was not present. All students of the entire school class groups 5A, 5B and 6A were tested on the written paper thereby avoiding possible class disruption (annexe A8. for written test design). The next test session on all four “skills” would take place at the end of the course at the beginning of June 2015 and was planned for periods avoiding school yearend exams and class excursions. 3.2. Classroom management and methodology. The students should be preferably sitting on chairs arranged in a semi-circle formation. Desks in front of students are admissible but not ideal as students tend to lean on them and the execution of some gestures is hindered as the elbows are not free to move. Chair-attached fold-away tables would be the recommended set-up. Maxwell (2001) has her students sitting on the floor in haphazard formation, however, one wonders at possible loss of class control with such an arrangement. Furthermore, stone floors without carpets, such as are found in most primary schools in Andalusia, provide seating that would hardly encourage students to remain in their places for very long. With chairs organised in a semicircular shape, the teacher can more easily pinpoint the direction of an anomalous utterance made in chorus and thus identify the individual A gesture-based approach to teaching English as a Second Language 74 responsible. Students should have no writing implements, books or notebooks to hand but these should be placed under their chairs or desks. The rationale here is that learner attention should be focused towards the teacher and the board/screen for maximum attention and any objects in front of the children would result in distraction. Heads are raised and looking forward; learners should be encouraged to adopt the attitude that they have come to speak English rather than to write it. At the front of the class is a screen, whiteboard or smartboard or some means to display or to project large pictures to the class. The language material is a text, available only to the teacher, which he/she is familiar with. Word for word memorisation is not necessary as the text may be displayed on a table or lectern in front of the teacher. 3.2.1. Materials. The materials to be used during the experimental course will be short stories from twenty to a hundred and sixty words in length (the longer texts for the latter stages of the course) or “chapters” of the same story creating a story serial that could span over several classes (see example of a story by chapters at annexe A11.2.). The lexical base is composed of high-frequency words. Ultimately, mostly within the first two thousand most common words in the English language. Yet initial instruction starts with smaller corpora based on the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR) with adaptations to also include suitable language for children of this age group. Furthermore, simplified or what is termed as “pared-down language” by Maxwell (2001) is used to assist learners in comprehending and using the L2 and rendering communication easier by ensuring learners have suitable functional words to hand to be able to express common and necessary ideas. The stories for the course have been written by the TR with additional material selected from published graded reader books for children (based on the CEFR corpus) 3. Methods 75 of this age group. Jokes with a punchline are considered ideal subject matter as the students are motivated to discover the humour behind the story (see a selection of story examples in annexe A11.). In each class, it is planned that learners will receive gesture input exposure to approximately two hundred to three hundred words (stories and jokes) followed by a fluency production phase at the end of each class. Pictures will also be used as visual references. These represent the stories and allow the teacher to present new language to the class. The pictures will either be pre-drawn by the teacher or photocopied from the graded reader books to be projected onto a screen in front of the class. 3.2.2. Implementation. Presentation phase. The teacher shows the students a picture on the board (in the experiment a projected picture from a canon connected to a laptop will be used). The picture is representative of the story and contains references to items contained within the story plot. The teacher points to relevant vocabulary items from the story and introduces all new words accompanied by gestures. Written vocabulary is not visible to learners during the presentation phase. Learners are asked to provide the utterances of words in chorus and all learners gesture in unison during utterance. The teacher may take a little time on pronunciation practice if necessary and choose individual learners to repeat words. During more advanced stages, the teacher may encourage some spoken feedback on the lexis or content of the picture. Lexical items are given salience by the use of gestures. Learners are required to associate each gesture with the meaning of the word at initial presentation. Thereafter, when the teacher performs the same gestures in front of the class, learners should focus on each gesture to interpret its meaning and utter the sounds. These actions serve to place emphasis on words and make them noticeable. Oral production is the result of a A gesture-based approach to teaching English as a Second Language 76 cognitive effort in recall of meaning and phonemic value as well as the act of pronunciation of the utterance. 3.2.3. Silent Sign. After the brief presentation phase of just a few minutes, the teacher moves on to the Silent Sign phase. This phase is termed “silent” as it is the teacher who refrains from speaking and gestures only. The students also gesture and utter the words in chorus recalled momentarily in memory. A strong parallel of this feature of Silent Sign can be drawn with "phonological rehearsal” (see section 2.3.2. above) where possible language acquisition and memory benefits are suggested. Group work (here in chorus yet with tacit and occasionally explicit interaction between learners) has been praised in the literature for the qualities it brings to the second language learning class (Pica and Doughty 1985 and Rulon and McCreary 1986). Jacobs (1998) listed a number of advantages of group activities in language instruction, the ones especially pertinent to Silent Sign are given here.  Learner independence can increase as each student makes a decision about language and provides his/her own utterance according to that decision (whether or not remodelled on peer utterances).  Anxiety can be reduced as all students are speaking together.  Motivation and enjoyment can increase.  Learning is enhanced as students are willing to take risks. The teacher gestures the words and sentences of the whole story from start to finish with as few pauses as possible. In fact, the teacher utters the text also but always after the students have completed a phrase or sentence. The teacher will also say words that need not be gestured such as people’s names. Let us imagine the first two sentences 3. Methods 77 of an actual pre-written story to be used in the experiment and label the stages of the Silent Sign dynamic (table 2). The two first sentences of the story are: “Montague Pilkinson’s plane crashed in the desert. He didn’t have any food or water.” Table 2: Theoretical teacher and student utterances and gestures in corresponding times over two sentences of a story to be performed through Silent Sign. (Full story at annexe A11.7.) s Montague Pilkinson g (Saxon genitive) g (plane) g (past tense) g (crash) g (in) g (the) g (desert) s Montague Pilkinson’s plane crashed in the desert. gs Montague Pilkinson’s gs plane gs crashed gs in gs the gs desert g (he/him) g (past tense) g (aux. do) g (negative) g (possessive have) g (some/any) g (food/eat) g (or) g (drink/water) s He didn’t have any food or water. gs He gs didn’t gs have gs any gs food gs or gs water Explanation of Table - The code here denotes teacher and/or student interaction types: g = gesture only, s = spoken word only, gs = gesture and spoken word simultaneously. - Nothing is uttered between ( ) and refers to the headword gestures performed. - The teacher’s interactions are shown in the blue rows and the students’ in the green rows. - Simultaneity between teacher and student interactions is shown in as though reading a musical score with vertical entries occurring at the same time. The main points to note during the Silent Sign process are listed here.  All students speak together and in unison. A certain rhythm should develop naturally avoiding cacophony. Correct utterances as well as alternative and incorrect ones should preferably be audible to the teacher.  Students who do not participate should be detectable as they fail to gesture or speak. However, “idlers” may just nonchalantly hand-wave A gesture-based approach to teaching English as a Second Language 78 and lip-move without attending to gesture meaning. Some individuals’ failure to participate at certain times will be inevitable and could be due to many understandable motives: tiredness or distraction, such as may happen in any class with young children. From the teacher’s point of view, however, it should be encouraging that such individual student “downtime” can usually be detected and addressed. Situations where student participation is seriously wanting should be handled at the end of the class or session so as not to disrupt the flow and dynamic of Silent Sign for the others.  Students are reading headword gestures so must interpret these according to structural and semantic context. Correct alternative utterances are also plausible. 3.2.4. Handling language structures with GW. The rationale to language structure teaching in GW follows similar lines to teaching lexis (see section 3.2.2.): to favour brief and frequent exposure and salience rather than in-depth instruction. Detailed explanations reduce the time available for frequency of exposure and the time learners are actively engaged in recall, decisionmaking and utterance. An explanation should be considered little more useful to acquisition than a simple exposure to it so that drawn out explanations are deemed timewasting and furthermore detract from focus on meaning rather than forms4. The gestures provide salience and a visual illustration of structures in a similar way that they proffer salience and an illustration of lexis. This dynamic of demonstrating structure usage is similar to the “co-grammatical gestures” of Lapaire 4 This paragraph outlines an essential concept faithfully adhered to during the GW dynamic and, believes the author, one that should be considered a paradigm imperative for successful early language acquisition. Referred to in this thesis as Direct Student Language Interaction (DSLI), it is dealt with in more detail in the following section on Theoretical Considerations. 3. Methods 79 (2013), which engage learners with a deeper understanding through an epistemic image of grammar. Any explicit explanation of grammar accompanies and complements the illustrative, demonstrative gesture. However, GW takes this a stage further and maintains the co-grammatical image/gesture together with its significance throughout frequent recycling of meaningful language. Each time the co-grammatical gesture is shown to the learners, recall of its sense and implications of usage re-emerges in their minds. Prepositions of place and movement, modal auxiliaries, future and past tense, verb aspects and other items often addressed as explicit and isolated grammatical structures in many Spanish schools’ curricula are treated in GW as fundamentally lexical, semantic and conceptual via gesture. Rather than introduce elaborate rules about grammar, salience and frequency of usage of co-grammatical gestures within clear contextual meaning should provide learners with a preferred environment for acquisition. GW heeds the lessons learnt from the exponents of Focus on Form (Doughty 2001, Lightbown 1992, Long 1991, Schmidt 1994). Without salience many students may fail to “notice” how these items are used in the language. The teacher thus explains the gestures during the presentation phase in relation to their communicative relevance with the structure they represent. It is possible, for example, that learners would be unable to distinguish between verb and auxiliary “have” without noticing features. GW can represent different meanings and grammatical usage of homonyms such as “have” with contrasting gestures – one gesture for each meaning or use. The example below shows the gesture for auxiliary “have” in present perfect when it refers to periods of time from past to present. This gesture is different from those that represent other meanings or uses of “have”. In the case of auxiliary “have”, this is a double gesture performed in one A gesture-based approach to teaching English as a Second Language 80 continuous motion which first signs “past” and then moves to “now”. At the stage of introduction of this gesture, learners will know fully the gestures for “past” and “now” so that the new gesture includes linguistic concepts and gestures they are already familiar with. Naturally, this “have” gesture requires a verbal explanation, which should be given briefly and orally by the teacher (perhaps one sentence only). Afterwards, frequency will ensure the gesture is exposed to learners time and time again. Each time it appears, learners must interpret the meaning and utter the corresponding word. The gesture itself is clear in meaning once explained yet even so learner acquisition for fluency production purposes will still require time. However, rather than resorting to periodical “revision” (as practised in many mainstream approaches) “have” auxiliary with this meaning has now been added to the input flood and learner lexical/item repertoire and will be encountered relatively frequently during the GW classes through gesture. If such structures are added gradually, learners will comprehend their use within meaningful and comprehensible input without the burden of time-consuming and meaning-detracting explicit instruction sessions5. HAVE 2 auxiliary of present perfect: From past to present, eg. ‘Jeff has had those shoes since he was twenty’. Sign similar to PAST (tense) but done with left hand onto right shoulder + NOW (this demonstrates the idea of an action that started in the past and is still continuing). Figure 15. From Gesture Dictionary (Bilbrough 2002b). Conversely, there are cases where words have very similar meanings but differ according to grammatical use. In these cases, the gestures can be identical regardless of grammatical context. This approach also fosters salience and cognitive and metalinguistic awareness by requiring learners to utter dissimilar words for the same gesture. In these cases, the teacher may have to intervene to provide corrective feedback to students and encourage them to change incorrect utterances. Peer corrective feedback 5 This is a functional description of how gesture assists the teacher in avoiding mainstream revision sessions and will be dealt with in more detail in the Theoretical Considerations. 3. Methods 81 is also possible with students calling out correct versions. This latter corrective feedback situation is preferred and should be encouraged. Examples of identical gestures representing different grammar uses are the articles “some” and “any” and the choice of one or the other depending on whether the sentence is affirmative, negative or interrogative. (Countable and uncountable versions of “some” and “any” are represented by different gestures). Frequent exposure should be sufficient to separate the different uses of these commonly reoccurring words with little more instruction proffered than corrective feedback. The technique of recycling these structures in the classroom through spoken and holistic English contrasts markedly with approaches recommended by many English coursebooks, where structures are so often taught through explanation and written exercises. SOME / ANY – countable: Where there is an idea of an indefinite number: 'there are some biscuits on the table'. Index held pointing up at head height. Index vibrates slightly to show plurality. Cf. with ONE where index is motionless. (Note: it is convenient for the signs ‘some’ and ‘any’ to be exactly the same allowing the students to make the correct uttered choice.) SOME / ANY – uncountable: Where there is an idea of an indefinite quantity: 'she's got some money with her', ‘would you like some cake?’. Index is held pointing up at head height. Index gyrates in small circles. Figure 16. From Gesture Dictionary (Bilbrough 2002b). Ideally, deadlines on comprehension and ability to correctly use a particular structure should not be imposed on learners. Permitting learners flexibility and respecting the time they need to assimilate structures may contradict the layout of many English language coursebooks and school curricula, where explicit teaching happens early on and students soon become involved in extensive form-focused written exercises and periodical testing6. The institution’s curriculum demands will determine if and which structures should be described to learners explicitly. If evaluation demands the 6 One wonders why this approach is still so widely-used in modern-day English teaching when the Audiolingual Method, which championed focusing on language in this way, was (in name anyway) ousted from SL teaching practice decades ago. A gesture-based approach to teaching English as a Second Language 88 There now follows an account of the methodological background to GestureWay and an analysis of the fundamental concepts responsible for class procedures during teaching. 4.1. Basic concepts and nomenclature. A definition of GW could be considered the following. GW affords, through a hand gesture medium, a predominantly input-based instruction learning environment for L2 English acquisition in the classroom. It is a tool designed to accelerate and enhance L2 input and acquisition and provide increased velocity of salience. It promotes a dynamic termed Direct Student Language Interaction (DSLI) together with holistic and comprehensible input of oral English. The nomenclature employed in this brief outline of GW will now be explained in the following paragraphs as GW requires a redefinition owing to the combination of a gesture tool with method resulting in a teaching dynamic distinct from many mainstream L2 teaching procedures. The hand gestures devised for GW to introduce and elicit oral L2 create a parallel language or system of “constant conceptual pegs”; a referent that can communicate the meanings of objects and actions as well as abstract notions otherwise difficult to visualise. An example of a notion transmittable through gesture would be “towards” (Figure 18). The visual quality, movement and learner’s motoric interaction required to perform the gesture are believed to generate a dynamic that can be rapidly comprehended and retained in the mind so that later teacher enactment of the same gesture will be successful in immediately eliciting the notion from the learner. TOWARDS (approach). Like sign for TO (prep) but right index starts from further away and moves slowly towards left palm and stops 10 cms. before reaching it. Figure 18. Gesture for “towards”. Gesture Dictionary (Bilbrough 2002b). 4. Theoretical considerations 89 An example of a conceptual peg pertaining to objects and actions we can visualise could be any iconic gesture representing objects or verbs: TREE: Right hand held with fingers and thumb spread, pointing up, palm towards you on right vertical forearm while left hand clasps forearm just above elbow. JUMP / LEAP etc.: Left hand held flat palm up, fingers pointing to the right. Right index and second finger makes inverted fork that 'stands' on right side of left hand and then 'jumps' up and lands on the left side of left hand. Figure 19. Iconic gestures for “tree” and “jump”. Gesture Dictionary (Bilbrough 2002b). The use of gestures and its relevance in oral communication has been described previously (McNeill 2005, Clark 1996, Kendon 1994 and 2004). Suggestions of the utility of gesture for providing an alternative reference code for second language learning have been given by Gullberg 2006, Terrell 1986, Swain and Lapkin 1995 and Tulving and Thomson 1973. Others have carried out empirical research into the benefits of gestures in second language learning (Allen 1995, Taleghani-Nikazm 2008 and Sueyoshi and Hardison 2005). The use of kinaesthetics (motoric actions) and their role in the retention of new language and second language acquisition in an implicit language learning context has been thoroughly explored by Asher (1969, 2009) and Rike (1993). An artificial gesture system for grammar comprehension of English was designed by Lapaire (2006, 2013). Maxwell (2001) has created a full artificial hand gesture language to introduce and elicit the second language in the classroom for L2 teaching and acquisition purposes. (See State-of-the-Art above for more detailed analysis of this research.) A summary of the basic procedure for implementing GW in the classroom (already described more fully in Methods) is the following. i) The teacher presents all new language orally accompanied by pre-established gestures and subsequently gestures silently (Silent Sign) all recycled language. A gesture-based approach to teaching English as a Second Language 90 ii) Students copy the teacher’s gestures and repeat the new language orally and subsequently gesture, interpret and utter in chorus the spoken version all gestures proffered by the teacher. This procedure requires students to produce “a kinaesthetic reaction to meaning” instead of using text in its “all too common role as a facilitator of material for speaking activities” (Bilbrough 2017:69). This is the formula suggested here to approximate an improved environment for retention and language acquisition. 4.1.1. Direct Student Language Interaction (DSLI). Asher (2009) reiterates time and again the importance of retention of any given language item for successful language learning, yet without any specific reference to an interlanguage model such as was described originally by Selinker (1972). Interlanguage comprises “mental grammars […] perceived as dynamic and subject to rapid change” (Ellis 2008:409). Therefore, in such a model lies the necessity, besides simply retaining the item in the mind, for frequent exposures to it in varying nuances on semantic, structural and always meaningful contexts so a learner may make readjustments to his/her interlanguage; a process called “mapping” (Slobin 1985). This mapping should lead to constant reappraisals of existing interlanguage knowledge. With reference to semantic nuances for native Spanish beginners of English, deciding when the Spanish reloj refers to the English “clock” or “watch” could be an example. With regards to structural contexts, Spanish learners of English require many exposures to the verbs “say” and “tell” to distinguish between the preference for one or the other depending on whether they describe the direct or indirect complement. In other words, practical and communicative lexical usage cannot be acquired through unrelated single “snapshots” (simple retention) by the memory of each lexical item but involves 4. Theoretical considerations 91 progressive, interrelated mapping onto the learner’s interlanguage system over time and often many exposures. The reference to “Direct Student Language Interaction” (DSLI) in the GW definition alludes partly to Asher’s First Trial Learning Hypothesis (Asher 2009). The hypothesis explained that retention of lexis for rapid and long-term storage is greatly improved if connections between incoming data and its processing are immediate – a direct cause and effect scenario. Additionally, it has been argued above, this same cause and effect scenario must encourage interlanguage development through frequent (preferably accelerated in limited classroom contexts) recycling of holistic language. To achieve this ideal state where L2 affordances and student intake of language meet at the optimum point, a classroom SL teaching approach must contribute to the appropriate environment. Jerome Bruner (1979), educational psychologist and philosopher, identified two styles of teaching – an “expository mode” approach and the “hypothetical mode”. The “expository mode” refers to "decisions covering the mode and pace and style of exposition are principally determined by the teacher as expositor; the student is the listener" – predominantly a passive role. However, the “hypothetical mode” suggests that "the teacher and the student are in a more cooperative position. Students are not bench-bound listeners, but ‘play the principal role in it’” (Bruner 1979:83). It is the learner as participator, problem solver, discoverer, engaged in “creative learning” who shall encounter a superior learning environment. Bruner underlines four headings which express the advantages of the hypothetical mode:  the increase in intellectual potency,  the shift from extrinsic to intrinsic rewards,  the learning of heuristics through discovery, A gesture-based approach to teaching English as a Second Language 92  the aid to improving and conserving memory. The following scenarios for DSLI are reflections on the union of the two above hypotheses; a juxtaposition between the interlanguage development scenario and the hypothetical mode of learning and a desire, on behalf of the teacher, to manoeuvre language classroom practices accordingly. There must be an effort to avoid superfluous classroom activity which impedes direct contact with L2 and instead allows lesson content to drift into irrelevance. There are two plausible classroom environments that serve to reduce DSLI. One pertains to classroom management and the dynamics of instruction within the class. When students, and perhaps especially children, manipulate physical materials in the classroom such as coursebooks, pens, coloured pencils, rubbers and pencil sharpeners, a certain amount of class time is taken up with manipulation with no language practice or exposure to the L2. Furthermore, from the author’s own perceptions, it has been noticed that children invariably use these “L2-absent” periods to exchange dialogue in the L1 so that focus on L2 is lost. The extent of L2-absent time due to poor classroom management can occupy a relatively large amount of a usual forty-five minute class. There is also the matter of “teacher talking time”. How much of what the teacher says during class time is beneficial for language acquisition? Teacher talking time could possibly be substituted for more efficient periods where learners can engage in language more meaningfully and usefully – speaking in the L2 rather than listening to the teacher. Learners perhaps could be more actively engaged in exposure and contact with the new language if L2-absent periods were minimised. The second plausible scenario when DSLI reduction occurs regards the learners’ interaction with the teaching materials during periods of instruction such as text readings and prompts for writing, reading, speaking and listening tasks. To briefly 4. Theoretical considerations 93 outline the issues, it is suggested here that text, often present in most activities whatever the skills being practised, detracts from direct interaction with meaning owing to its inefficiency to express its underlying sense to the learner. Written words in L2 are not intuitive to a child unfamiliar with them. This means that many classroom activities involve excessive glossing and gist reading so that not only is salience of the bulk of the text wanting, learners may remain unaware of the significance of a proportion of the text they are exposed to. The issues of text in SL learning classroom will be addressed later in this thesis. 4.1.2. The functions of gesture input in GestureWay. The functions of the gestures in GW in the English language classroom are the following. a) To offer learners “constant conceptual pegs” where meanings of every uttered word encountered can be “hung” (see Paivio, 1969:244 for conceptual pegs and State of the Art of this thesis). b) To provide an improved DSLI environment for acquisition through gesture interpretation into utterances. Meanings from gestures are directly linked to spoken language while intermediary reference pegs such as L2 text or L1 translation are minimal. c) To accelerate recycling of oral L2 in the classroom and thereby increase the amount of exposure to lexis and structures within a given time (Maxwell 2001, Arnott 2005). This occurs through DSLI and the learner’s access to frequently repeated conceptual pegs of any given word created instantly (such are hand gestures) for eliciting language. d) To ensure active, salient, cognitive interpretation rather than just passive literal transfer of gestures into meanings and their lexical renderings in oral English. A gesture-based approach to teaching English as a Second Language 94 This is achieved through a headword-based gesture language. For example, the gesture for the verb “open” is also identical for: “opening”, “opens”, “opened” and a noun “book”. Gestures need interpreting, a feat possible for learners only through awareness of meaning and context. The act of interpreting affords noticing or salience of items within a sentence. If meaning and context are clear, learners can concentrate on correct interpretation, oral production and, in the case of grammar elements, construction. This is input-based instruction as discussed by Ellis (2008:873). A casual reading of text can be misleading. Many native speakers of English will state that the words they see in the above box is “Paris in the spring” (overlooking the repeated article). This may seem little more than a parlour trick but the concept illustrated here is that text is poor at inducing salience of the separate parts of a sentence if not highlighted (Schmitt 1990 and Yoshimura 2006). The tendency to skip words while reading explains how we can enjoy a novel in our mother tongue as written prose evokes feelings: emotions, atmosphere or excitement; sentiments which would be considerably dampened if we had to spend time and effort interpreting the textual make-up of the novel. This must also explain why English teachers choose to create cloze exercises of text for the students – to enhance salience. Yet by highlighting some words in a text, we remove the same from those words not highlighted – the holistic quality is lost. This discrete item highlighting approach could be useful for more advanced students with a well-developed communicative ability in the L2 as concentrating on a particular item may assist learners to build on their current interlanguage and apply it in fluency tasks. However, learners of an L2 still at a preParis in the the spring. 4. Theoretical considerations 95 fluency level who have difficulties in producing full sentences in fluency production tasks will surely benefit little from input and practice based on discrete item salience on parts of a sentence. Learners at these low levels of fluency need to have access to an holistic input of the most common words (Nation 2001) that comprise all parts of a sentence. Input of discrete structure/lexis exercises only could be tantamount to offering learners a piece of a jigsaw in each class but removing those pieces offered in previous lessons so that learners never learn where they fit into the whole picture. Learners are unable to see the complete picture as they only study its separate parts in isolation, parts which seem irrelevant to communication without a global view of the language. GW is designed to offer both holistic and salient exposure of L2 across all items of a sentence (Bilbrough 2017). If we take up the previous analogy of the jigsaw, it could be said that in a given class GW offers only several pieces of the huge L2 jigsaw yet these pieces fit together to create a meaningful section, useful on its own and memorable (for example, all the vocabulary of a story). In subsequent classes, more pieces are added and fitted building a larger picture always recognisable and coherent and useful communicatively. e) To promote a programme of learning and acquisition within the class time limits. During a GW class, acquisition takes place during exposure and interaction with language and while the class is in progress. Homework is not a revision of the material presented in class but should be an extension of it – if given at all10. Note-taking is greatly reduced or omitted altogether during the preliminary stages of the course so endof-term, pre-examination revision ceases to constitute a requisite (or option) for learners to obtain successful results at evaluation. On the other hand, learners are required to be attentive and participate fully during class time. 10 Explained in Methods, above, regarding homework tasks is the idea of asking the learners to view gesture videos pre-recorded by the TR or record Mp3 files of stories. A gesture-based approach to teaching English as a Second Language 96 f) To provide a kinaesthetic environment for language to augment memory of L2 lexis (Anderson 1980, Allen 1985, Antes 1996, Al-shabbi 1993, Asher 1969, Bilbrough 2002, 2017, Gullberg 2006 and Maxwell 2001). 4.1.3. Ideal student profile for GW. The preferred student profile for a GW course is for the following.  Children between the ages of seven and eight years old for introductory courses with instruction continuing to eleven and twelve; a three to four-year course in total. If younger than six years old, learners would need a modified approach to GW due to the degree of metalinguistic knowledge required by learners.  Children (within the above age range) who have either not received English instruction previously or who have previously followed a course that, by its nature, has not encouraged learners to speak and develop spoken fluency for communicative purposes or where spoken skills are weak compared to explicit knowledge of L2.  Criteria from the above student profiles but within impoverished communities with a lack of resources and funding for materials such as student coursebooks, which are not required for a GW course. These communities could be in third world countries, for example. 4.2. Established language acquisition approaches relevant to GW. 4.2.1. Input-based instruction. According to Ellis, input-based instruction is “directed at enabling learners to notice the presence of a specific feature in the input” (2008:873). Ellis and Pienemann have suggested that it is psycholinguistically easier to manipulate processes involved during intake than make alterations to existing interlanguage (Ellis 2008 and Pienemann 1985). Input-based instruction is in accordance with the Noticing Hypothesis (Schmitt 4. Theoretical considerations 97 1990). This hypothesis states that language cannot be available for intake unless it is noticed consciously in some way. For example, it was found that when one group of learners read a text where the past tense of verbs was highlighted (enriched input), they were more likely to use those forms than the group who had read the same text without highlighting (Yoshimura 2006). Extensions of these theories are the pedagogical concepts of structured input (SI) and processing instruction (PI). The former, SI, unlike enriched input requires the learners to demonstrate an awareness of language processing at the moment of input. According to Ellis (1995) the awareness is brought about by using stimuli termed by Ellis as “interpretation tasks”, for example, choosing the right picture to match the meaning of the sentence, indicate true/false, check a box, draw a diagram or perform an action. VanPatten (2006) also argued in favour of the benefits of input-based instruction with his processing instruction (PI) approach. VanPatten and Oikennon (1996) explored PI through a series of experiments combining structured input activities and explicit information instruction in various ways. In one experiment he compared L2 acquisition in three groups of learners. 1) Learners received explicit instruction about a target structure followed by structured input activities. 2) Learners received explicit instruction only. 3) Learners received structured input activities only. In a subsequent comprehension test, groups (1) and (3) performed markedly better. In the production test, group (1) performed better than (2). VanPatten and Oikennon believed that it was the structured input rather than the explicit instruction that had given rise to enhanced acquisition. A gesture-based approach to teaching English as a Second Language 104 (DSLI) environment in the classroom and instead favours a rather academic-style grammar study and rote-learning of functional expressions. However, Focus on Form (no “s”) is given a different definition in the literature: “Focus on Form often consists of an occasional shift of attention to linguistic code features – by the teacher and/or one or more students – triggered by perceived problems with comprehension or production” (Long & Robinson 1998:23). Michael Long offered a similar description: “[…] Focus on Form […] overtly draws students’ attention to linguistic elements as they arise incidentally in lessons whose overriding focus is on meaning or communication” (Long 1991:45-46). Both Long (1991) and Doughty and Williams (1998) argue that guarantees of full acquisition will only occur if learners have the opportunity to engage in meaning-focused tasks while attending to form. Ellis, while summarizing previous research on the long-term effects of FFI which dominated and precluded meaning in classroom tasks has this to say: “There is […] sufficient evidence to suggest that instruction does not always have a long term effect” (Ellis 2008:867). Lightbown went further and stated: “when form-focused instruction is introduced in a way which is divorced from the communicative needs and activities of the students, only short-term effects are obtained” (Lightbown 1992 in Ellis 2008:867). In other words, forms must be included with meaningful tasks and the students “may also need subsequent and possibly continuous access to communication that utilizes the target features after the instruction has ceased” (Ellis 2008:867). We return inevitably to the points made earlier in this thesis regarding “noticing” and “salience”. Schmidt, quoted in Harley, stated the following regarding conscious experience of noticing as a “registration of the occurrence of a stimulus event in conscious awareness and subsequent storage in long term memory” (Schmidt in Harley 1988:179). Schmidt goes on to say, “target language forms will not be acquired unless 4. Theoretical considerations 105 they are noticed and that one important way that instruction works is by increasing the salience of target language forms in input so that they are more likely to be noticed by learners” (Schmidt 1994:195). Similarly, Doughty (2001) contends “the factor that distinguishes Focus-on-Form from other pedagogical approaches is the requirement that [it] involves learners briefly and perhaps simultaneously attending to form, meaning and use during one cognitive event” (2001:211). Finally, in Eliss’s appraisal (2008) of Focus on Form research and the relevance of the empirical findings to that date, he assures the reader the conclusions bear testimony to the practical importance of techniques involving Focus on Form in the classroom. He attacks Sheen (2003), who criticised SLA researchers for advocating this approach for the language classroom stating there was insufficient empirical evidence to support these claims. Ellis counters Sheen’s objections using as evidence the above empirical studies, and states: “He is clearly wrong” (Ellis 2008:833). The GW dynamic utilises the Focus on Form practice via the implementation of gestures. The need for the gestures to be interpreted, essentially promotes salience of lexis and structural items within meaningful sentences. Meaning predominates throughout and whenever explicit instruction is introduced in the classroom, it does so within a communicative interaction environment. 4.3. The role of text in language learning and GW. Due, in part, to DSLI considerations, the author has withdrawn the use of text in the classroom during approximately ninety percent of class time of the experimental course. In fact, the initial preference was for an even smaller percentage of class time dedicated to writing tasks or none whatsoever for a determined period such as in AIM’s Gesture Approach (The Brampton Guardian 2002. Internet source). However, as it has been decided to evaluate learners during this experiment also via written tests and not A gesture-based approach to teaching English as a Second Language 106 just orally, text will be introduced for a greater proportion of class time. It is assumed that exposure to the written word for comparative evaluation purposes with control groups is essential otherwise learners will not be able to transcribe their L2 on paper. Text is the usual reference medium employed in elementary level English language classes in Spanish schools. It is used as a meaning “receiver” usually accompanied initially by a visual referent which transfers meaning to it. Words of text serve as “reference pegs” (rather than conceptual pegs) on which to “hang” or record meaning and are used subsequently to elicit L2 lexis in future exposures. Learners are expected to recognise and respond to the meanings of words of text in order to participate in L2 activities that take place in the classroom. Text used in this way in English language instruction before the experiment started was frequent to predominant in all the English classes of the groups (see teacher questionnaires – enclosed CD). One problem with text in SL learning classrooms at beginner and elementary levels is that it is a poor medium for revealing meaning to the learner. Text offers the low-level student with few or no clues to its meaning due to its non-pictorial nature. A written word as a reference peg could be classed as an “empty peg” as written words in L2 may still not reveal meaning to beginners even after one or more exposures. The experimental and control groups in Pedro Primero followed a single coursebook of Twister 5 and 6 respectively (Richmond Publishing 2007), which employed the commonly-used approach for introducing all L2 lexis by means of an image plus the written word for meaning association. In the example below, taken from the fifth year course book in Pedro Primero, Twister 5, (Figure 20) the rubric of Exercise 1 reads “match the picture with the word” (Blair et.al 2007:14). The inclusion of textual versions of new vocabulary during presentation adds a potential distraction to the retention and acquisition processes by asking learners to transfer meaning from the 4. Theoretical considerations 107 visual aid to the written word. In Pedro Primero, students were required to record this written vocabulary in notebooks for future revision invariably with a text translation alongside in Spanish, which could add an additional distraction by diverting L2 lexis exposure to L1 equivalents. Indeed, the necessity to include the written translation is vital and understandable. Without the semantic association of a new L2 word recorded in some form of annotation, during future revision the learner could rely on no or little indication from the written word itself as to its meaning. Furthermore, it has been said that “we write things down so we don’t have to remember”11. One can imagine the temptation to free one’s mind of the burden of memory by feeling reassured that the information is safely stored away in a notebook until pre-exam revision time. Figure 20. First page of Unit 1 (Twister 5, Richmond Publishing 2007). 11 I believe this was stated in a work by the late Dave Willis of Task-Based Learning fame though I can no longer find the reference. A gesture-based approach to teaching English as a Second Language 108 The images in the textbook, bright and attractive though they may be, will hereafter be discarded as they have served their purpose. Imagery is used here only provisionally to rouse learners’ interest in the material and the lesson and associate meaning to textual words. Unlike artificial memory devices (Yates 1966 and Paivio 1969) which insisted on consistency of the same conceived image to enhance memory and serve as conceptual pegs and even Comenius’s Orbis Sensualism Pictus (1658), where the student had only one visual referent per lexical item, modern-day coursebook design offers learners multiple variations in imagery to represent the same vocabulary item. Indeed, such a vast diversification in form and colour must motivate and stimulate the learner’s interest in the subject matter yet perhaps the original function of imagery as aide-memoire; meaning instantly “foaming” from image, has been lost. Neither does the association of text with utterance provide the learner with a significant, intuitive or useful relationship. In the case of L2 English, the comparison could be misleading for native Spanish learners owing to phonetic inconsistencies between the two languages. On the other hand, a learner may read a word aloud with near-perfect pronunciation but not attributable to his/her former knowledge but owing to phonetic coincidence between L1 and L2. For example, a Spanish learner of English could render a fully comprehensible oral version of the following without understanding or even having ever encountered the words during previous study: “Tim sat on a mat”. Text-based instruction in the classroom setting, therefore, presents drawbacks not only in L2 acquisition for the beginner/elementary learner but also for the teacher’s efforts to evaluate learners’ knowledge and progress from text-generated student utterances in the classroom. Conversely and confusingly for the teacher, a learner may read text aloud 4. Theoretical considerations 109 with full comprehension of meaning and accurate pronunciation owing to correct knowledge so that a second learner could read aloud: “Tim sat on a mat” fully comprehending its meaning yet be indistinguishable from the student who is oblivious of the meaning of the utterance. Text is therefore defective and counterproductive as an L2 eliciting tool as the teacher cannot accurately assess student knowledge or progress of L2 though utterances read from text. The teacher must accept that speaking activities in the classroom involving text are contrived and provide inexact feedback on student interlanguage and communicative ability. Figure 21 shows the following exercise in the aforementioned coursebook. Figure 21. Second page of Unit 1 (Twister 5, Richmond Publishing 2007). A gesture-based approach to teaching English as a Second Language 110 The page comprising Figure 21 makes up a double-page spread in the coursebook (Blair et.al 2007:14, 15) with Figure 20 and is part of the same lesson. Having completed the lexis presentation and revision exercise on body parts and descriptive adjectives, learners listen to, read and repeat the written conversation in exercise 3. Once completed, learners listen to an example activity of Exercise 4 where a secret agent is described and are asked to continue the game in pairs following the guideline of “describe and guess”. The format suggested by the coursebook for this unit, and similarly with the remaining seven units of this coursebook and the following coursebook in the same series for the sixth year control group was adhered to by the Pedro Primero teacher. It is apparent that the subsequent spoken dialogues that students participate in through pair-work will be based on the written example dialogue clearly visible during production. Students need only substitute a minimum number of words from the dialogue describing one’s “mum” or “brother” to be able to carry out, seemingly successfully to the casual listener, the description of a secret agent. Surely, there is little merit in a production exercise of this kind when every word that learners require for the spoken production task is visibly available to reference on the double-page spread before them. It could be argued that this is a “controlled production” exercise yet no further Complete Production activity is offered in the student’s book. Furthermore, if learners were then asked to engage in a similar dialogue without the assistance of the text and relying on pictures only, the challenge could be enormous and even more so if asked to repeat the activity without text assistance in a future class after time has elapsed and items memorised incidentally have faded from memory. In the exercises in Figure 21, learners are dependent on the abundant text evidence in full sentences together with convenient phonetic clues to make utterances. It should also be pointed 4. Theoretical considerations 111 that the text offers no apparent salience on lexis or structures and draws little on learner cognition, which might assist retention, to complete the task12. In the light of comments formerly discussed above, we can summarise the following regarding the pitfalls of text as a reference peg approach (here with specific reference to the example exercises in Figures 20 and 21). Table 3: summary of issues and possible consequences of text use in elementary L2 level class settings. Issue Possible consequence a) In exercise 1, learners engage in a language presentation task based on transferring meaning to written words, which carry no conceptual meaning – “empty pegs”. (i) Learners tend to record new language in the same written form and include written translation to reveal L2 meaning in the future. A notebook of the new language becomes the storage medium rather than the learner’s interlanguage. b) In exercises 3 and 4, learners are engaged in a spoken language exercise referring to pegs (text) without clear meaning attached. (ii) Learners may not understand all the utterances they produce. (iii) The teacher cannot know (for evaluation purposes) if learners understand their own utterances. c) In exercises 3 and 4, learners make constant reference to the phonetic clues provided by written text in order to produce utterances. (iv) The activity is passive. There is no salience on items within the text making few demands on learner cognition to internalise or acquire language. (v) Students could pronounce incorrectly as the written reference (encountered more frequently) obscures the spoken utterance, to which learners have had little exposure. (vi) See (iii) above. 4.4. Alternative means to present and elicit L2 – fluctuating and constant conceptual pegs. The role of Total Physical Response (TPR) in essentially substituting text and replacing it with actions is discussed in the sections on Asher and TPR in State of the 12 Admittedly, it is possible to add “noticing” to text as Schmitt (1990) and (Yoshimura 2006) have suggested. However, the argument the author is presenting here is that salience on some parts of the text diminishes salience on those parts not highlighted and salient exposure is necessary on all parts of a sentence if elementary-level learners are to acquire sufficient language for complete production. A gesture-based approach to teaching English as a Second Language 112 Art (section 2.6.1.). Also pointed out is that TPR actions do not embody a systematic code representing a faithful parallel to the words of a written sentence, rather they are a “compositional representation”; a kinaesthetic performance carried out by the learner which relates to an overall meaning and can be described by a full-sentence utterance. In a similar way, Gattegno’s Silent Way utilises Cuisenaire rods to input and elicit full holistic language from learners who glean meanings entirely from the positioning of the rods on the table and produce utterances only from these stimuli. Nevertheless, for the teacher to be able to elicit language, learners must first be able to retain it. Interestingly, neither the action performances of Asher’s approaches nor the Cuisenaire rod patterns are intentionally consistent. The visual aspect of these actions and rod patterns may vary from class to class in execution or appearance. These techniques do not consider necessary a constancy of the conceptual reference pegs employed for language presentation and eliciting. It could be said that these eliciting stimuli are “fluctuating conceptual pegs”. The success, according to Asher, in the learners’ ability to remember lexis and items and respond successfully to future eliciting of language stems from the influence of "sensory input" provided by actions which are "converted into information" and "placed in long-term storage for retrieval anytime in the future" (1977:18). On the other hand, Gattegno (1987) claims that rather than memorisation, retention for eliciting is a “complex intellectual activity based on the use of affectivity, perception and actions, always in close contact with students' images and imagination” (1987:1). In Allen’s experiment (section 2.5.3.), she involved the use of “emblematic” gestures, again pertaining to the compositional representation genre but constant in their execution. Exactly the same gesture was used to represent the same meaning and subsequently assist learners recall and produce the idiomatic expressions in L2 French. 4. Theoretical considerations 113 Similarly, Maxwell (2001) through AIM also designed pre-conceived gestures which are repeatedly used with the intention of eliciting language through their recognition just as the words of a book are unchanging and fixed to their meaning. This fixed gesture to meaning relationship can be termed as a “constant conceptual peg”. The author mentions here what could be termed a “forerunner” of the gesture conceptual peg tools. It is important due to its influence on the author’s conception of the GW approach. William Chuckney with his Skeleton Approach (1987) must have been aware of a need to increase the immediacy between meaning and utterance by designing a pictorial code illustrated on cards to elicit full sentences from learners. Many of the cards represent single words so that all parts of the sentence could be displayed for oral production and meaning. With this approach DSLI is closely approximated (Figure 22). Figure 22. Chuckney’s constant conceptual pegs in Wright (1989:88) on the Skeleton System. A gesture-based approach to teaching English as a Second Language 120 considered less exclusive and more accessible for test-takers, was designed (rubric 1) (each test offering five questions on the same morphological items). Rubric 1: a) Respuestas cortas negativas y afirmativas. Contesta a estas preguntas. Utiliza estas palabras: do / does / don’t / doesn’t 1) Does Lucy have a computer? Yes, she ________. 2) etc. Rubric 2: a) Respuestas cortas negativas y afirmativas. Rellena los espacios para contestar a estas preguntas15. Ejemplo: Do you go to school on Sundays? No, I don’t._ 1) Does Lucy have a computer? Yes, she ________. 2) etc. In rubric 1, all possible answers are given whereas in rubric 2 only one answer is provided but within a model answer. Rubric 2 would be a preferred version because if test-takers answered using the other items required (do, does, doesn’t), strong evidence of previous exposure to these structures is evident. Rubric 1 offers all the possibilities for the test and therefore it is open for answers based on conjecture or guessing rather than previous knowledge. The results with rubric 1, theoretically, could be less indicative of true test-taker morpheme awareness. Notwithstanding, if test-takers were 15 Translations of the rubrics (not included) are: a) Short answers, negative and affirmative. Answer these questions. Use these words; b) Short answers, negative and affirmative. Fill in the spaces to answer these questions. Example. 5. Results 121 unable to complete questions with the preferred rubric 2, there would be a danger that the entire pre-test could fail to deliver any useful data. For these reasons, a pilot test was given to determine test-takers’ ability to answer tests with these rubrics. A test including only the use of do, does, don’t, didn’t structures in short answers (eg. yes, I do; no, he doesn’t, etc.) was administered to courses 5A and 5B at Pedro Primero (classes containing the experimental students). A full pilot test on all the structures to appear in the pre-test could obviously not be given as this would offer further exposure to the structures and have possible influence on the outcomes of the real pre-test given shortly afterwards. Only fifty students from the fifth year were available for testing so at least some experimental students had to be included in the pilot test. A pilot test on all the morphemes planned for pre-test was considered not necessary as the acquisition of the do, does, don’t, doesn’t structures happens at a similar stage as the other morphemes under test due to their similarity16. Half of each class received the test with rubric 1 and the other half with rubric 2 – twenty tests with each rubric. Instructions were given to the teacher to distribute the tests randomly and provide no help to test-takers with instruction guidance. The results were enlightening. Test-takers following the preferred rubric 2 actually performed slightly better than those following rubric 1. The differences between scores can be categorised as insignificant. Even if the tests were marked permitting only marks of >2, 13/20 test-takers passed with rubric 1 and 11/20 with rubric 2. Both scenarios offered similar results which suggested that the validity of the rubric 2 test was suitable and could therefore be included in the pre-test design. 16 There are exceptions here of structures acquired at later stages in acquisition and also included in the pre-test (see pre-test structures in list below). It was discovered, through interviews with the students’ teachers, that the control sixth year group had studied more question words, present continuous, “going to” for future and past simple regular and irregular verbs – structures apparently unknown to the experimental group also among the academy students. However, it was assumed that the fifth year experimental group would simply leave these questions blank anyway. No pilot test was given to the control group. A gesture-based approach to teaching English as a Second Language 122 Figure 23. Total number of correct answers out of a hundred scored by fifth year students with each rubric of pilot test. 5.3. The written pre-test. As was mentioned above, the morphemic and lexical items included in the pretest were those studied by either both fifth and sixth year groups or the sixth year group only. The same items were intended as structures for inclusion in the experimental course content. Below is a list of the structures for the pre-test (see annexe A8. for complete test design). a) Present simple affirmative phrases (3rd person ‘s’). b) Verb forms (gerund, 3rd person ‘s’). c) Present simple question forms + infinitive use (distinguishing between do and does and use of infinitive after auxiliary). d) Present simple questions with verb to be (distinguishing between is and are). f) Negative forms of verbs (distinguishing between isn’t and aren’t). g) Present continuous for actions in the present (distinguishing between present simple and continuous). h) Past tense of verbs (two regular and three irregular verbs to conjugate in past simple). i) Reading comprehension (read a text and answer questions). j) Controlled written composition (reading a text in 3rd person as a model and writing a similar one in 1st person following the model). k) Identifying question words (using correct question words: how, who, what time, etc.) l) “Going to” phrases for future plans (constructing phrases with going to). Figure 24. Test description. Morpheme structures tested in pre-test. 0 20 40 60 80 100 Rubric 1 Rubric 2 5. Results 123 5.3.1. Results of written pre-test. A glance at the written pre-test results per test-taker’s performance provides evidence of control group superiority in morpheme awareness and knowledge (Figure 25). Figure 25. Results of written pre-test per test-taker arranged in ascending order for both groups (17 testtakers 17.) However, the results of the written pre-test displayed according to morpheme structure showed that although some students from both groups had awareness of the majority of the morphemic structures under test, the experimental group showed a slightly higher number of test-takers with morpheme awareness than the control group in 6 of the morphemes (see Figure 26). 17 Originally there were 19 test-takers in the experimental group but as two students left the course before its conclusion, those two pre-tests have been omitted to facilitate later comparisons during post-testing. 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 Exp. Gp. Cont. Gp. A gesture-based approach to teaching English as a Second Language 124 Figure 26. Pre-test. Number of test-takers (maximum 17) in the experimental and control groups who scored a pass for each of the tests a to l. See Figure 24 for test description. The weakest morpheme knowledge area was question construction (c) with only one student (experimental) showing adequate awareness to gain a pass. The overall number of test-takers passing the reading comprehension and writing sections (i and j) was equal. Nevertheless, the control group produced similar scores to the experimental group except in three categories where the control group had relatively high numbers of test-takers who showed morpheme knowledge and the experimental group no awareness at all. These morpheme categories were the following.  Past simple (h)  Question words (k)  “Going to” for plans (l) This last result was not surprising, as the experimental group had not received formal instruction on past tense of verbs or “going to” neither in Pedro Primero nor at the academy. For reasons unknown, the control group did not show significantly more testtakers with higher scores than the experimental group across the whole test spectrum despite being a year older than those learners involved in the experiment. One reason for this might have been that the majority of students who elected to enrol on the 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 a b c d e f g h i j k l Exp. Gp. Cont. Gp. 5. Results 125 experimental programme did so out of high levels of interest in learning English and therefore were motivated and more skilled learners. The control group students selected for participation in the control was done at random (alphabetical order on class register). (This point is taken up in more detail later.) Another reason could reflect the linearity of structure teaching at Pedro Primero and that the most recent materials taught in the English classes were those that learners remembered best. Despite the lack of overall control group supremacy, test-taker number differences showing awareness of the items tested between the two groups could be classed as “not significant” with a clear number of control group test-takers with sole awareness on three test items. Furthermore, if the global score of all tests passed is taken into consideration, the control group shows clear dominance between the two groups in L2 ability and should be deemed more linguistically advanced than their younger counterparts of the experimental group (see Figure 27). Figure 27. Number of tests passed in written pre-test. Showing students who also attended English academy and those with no extra private English tuition. Another distinct feature of the pre-test results is the apparent disparity in morpheme awareness and L2 ability between those test-takers attending the local English academy and those receiving no extra private tuition in English (Figure 27). This occurrence was envisaged after enrolment had taken place meaning that a 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 Academy students Non-academy students Exp. Gp. Cont. Gp. A gesture-based approach to teaching English as a Second Language 126 pronounced level divide would need to be addressed during the course – an issue taken up later in this thesis. 5.4. The speaking pre-test. The speaking pre-test (see annexe A8.2. for score sheet) was carried out by the author as examiner. Test-takers were examined in pairs (see Methods). The oral test was recorded on an Mp3 recorder for later analysis and more accurate scoring. The focus for evaluation of the speaking tests was on strategies learners acquire for communication (lexis richness, conjunctions, sentence building ability, etc.) and mostly at the sentence level rather than accuracy in morpheme usage. The parts of the test were:  an initial simple object naming session to relax students,  a list of short personal questions based on suggestions from Pedro Primero coursebook (mostly functional phrases featured in coursebook: “what’s your name?”, “where are you from?”, “How many brothers and sisters have you got?” etc.),  a brief story-telling session based on a three-section comic strip. The whole exam for both test-takers lasted approximately ten minutes. 5.4.1. Evaluation strategies adopted for the experimental test material. The rationale behind the marking strategy of the tests for the experiment was to avoid marking through error detection only. Bachman and Palmer (2009) have pointed out the pitfalls to this approach and described some of the complications (2009:196). Ellis (2008) discusses the issues of Error Analysis with reference to overt and covert errors where the sentence: “I runned all the way” is overt and easy to identify. Yet the rendering: 5. Results 127 “It was stopped” is grammatically correct until the context is discovered; the subject pronoun “it” refers to “the wind” (covert error). Ellis quotes Corder who states that “every sentence is to be regarded as idiosyncratic until shown to be otherwise” (Corder 1967:21 in Ellis 2008:49). However, the overt-covert division is plagued with exceptions and complicated variances that defy reliable interpretation when the test-taker is absent and not available for consultation. Ellis (2008) quotes the example: “One day an Indian gentleman, a snake charmer, arrived in England. He was coming from Bombay.” Ellis suggests that the preferred form is “He had come”, however, “He was coming” is possible if the speaker wishes to emphasise the duration of the action. On the other hand, an analysis of a corpus of errors committed by Indian native learners of English would reveal the frequent overuse of the progressive forms (2008:49). Notwithstanding, does this mean the evaluator can never give the test-taker the benefit of the doubt and that all ambiguous progressive uses must inevitably be wrongly construed? The problem is further exacerbated when testing is oral and pronunciation is not clearly distinguished at delivery: verb endings, for example, such as third person “-s” or regular verb “-ed” suffixes are cases in point especially with Ansalusian learners of English. If the evaluator considers all renderings idiosyncratic and marks negatively accordingly as Corder suggests, assessment becomes impartial and individualistic, favouring learners with clearer diction rather than basing appraisal on learner acquisition levels. Ellis points out Corder’s suggestion (1967) that there should be a distinction between “errors” and “mistakes” where the latter is a “performance phenomenon and are, of course, regular features of native-speaker speech, reflecting processing failures that arise as a result of competing plans, memory limitations, and a lack of automaticity” (Ellis 2008:48). Ellis summarises criticism of strategies adopted A gesture-based approach to teaching English as a Second Language 128 for Error Analysis by researchers and teachers that states: “EA [Error Analysis] fails to provide a complete picture of learner language. We need to know what learners do correctly as well as what they do incorrectly” (2008:61). Ellis goes on to say that perhaps this conjecture is “overstated” and that EA can be considered to have a place “as a partial and preliminary source of information at an initial stage of investigation” (Hammarberg 1973:34 in Ellis 2008:61). In general, however, it is more useful for data collection purposes and more accurate when analysing L2 acquisition development if the evaluator assesses what we can unambiguously identify rather than elements of test-taker utterances and renderings that are masked by poor pronunciation or semantic intentions that escape interpretation. Also, a sentence-level approach to L2 assessment that provides greater indications of learner acquisition levels is preferable. Emphasis is placed on what students know about the L2 rather than attempting deductions about what they do not know. Therefore, the rendering (either written of uttered) for the purposes of marking these tests of: “I runned all the way” will receive credit for a syntactically accurate sentence albeit a reduced credit due to the incorrect verb marking. In a similar way, covert sentences such as: “It was stopped” (see example above) would receive credit for correct construction yet a lower one as the verb aspect is incorrectly marked. Preliminary scores were noted during the speaking exam and revised at a later date from an analysis of the recordings. The complete transcripts of the oral tests were typed up and marks annotated alongside. Sentence construction criteria were categorised and a weighting score system was then applied to evaluate test-taker utterances. 5. Results 129  A = correct in grammar and meaning, complete sentence with required subject / verb and object if necessary – weighting 418.  B = partially correct in grammar. Has relevant meaning. A full sentence (at least one verb) – weighting 2.  C = single word answer(s). No subject plus verb. Unfinished sentence or with verb but although vocabulary related to topic, meaning to the utterance is unclear or the phrase contains Spanish – weighting 1.  0 = No words understood, completely unrelated words, silence, Spanish only for entire utterance, or just repeats proper nouns such as people’s names and nothing else – weighting 0.  CV = number of different verbs (except be) used correctly in context (not necessarily grammatically correct). Only one instance of each verb recorded – weighting 2.  Linkers = conjunctions and ability to join main and subordinate clauses (for example with “when”). The conjunction “and” was not included in the count – weighting 2. Examples of applying sentence categorisation adopted by this marking scheme and the corresponding weighting are the following taken from an actual pre-test oral paper. Kevin [not understood] is Saturday eight. C – 1 point = 1 And Kevin is eating at half past one. A – 4 points + 1CV – 2 points = 6 At six o’clock Kevin go to the park with her bike. B – 2 points + 1CV – 2 points = 4 And at half past nine Kevin is watching TV. A – 4 points + 1CV = 2 points = 6 It has often been pointed out that morpheme use in fluency tasks is dependent on natural acquisition order (see section 4.2.4.) and therefore if the purpose of the test focuses on detecting awareness of morpheme structures rather than accuracy, the evaluator should refrain from deducting points for renderings such as: “Kevin go to the park” 18 This is also an EA technique adopted by Foster and Skehan (1996) where they made a calculation of the percentage of error-free clauses. A gesture-based approach to teaching English as a Second Language 136 of their oral knowledge of English an obstacle providing they had previously some although relatively limited exposure to most of the lexis in written form. (That writing at this level should not be considered a “skill” is discussed in section 4.4.). This theory, however, would be difficult to put to the test owing to the extensive amount of written work experimental learners were receiving at the school and academy. To sum up, the brief encounters with written lexis in the experimental course together with extended study of English in written form at school should provide sufficient exposure to carry out a written composition task. The post-test writing task required test-takers to write the story they considered took place from following a sequence of five comic-strip pictures. Again, the material was taken from Cambridge Flyers. This was a written “free-style” exercise and the author expected to be able to glean some insights into learner interlanguage development from analysing the resulting texts produced. Although not a true fluency activity, when children write prose from their own imagination they tend to give priority to message rather than form. The post-written and listening test was carried out during school class time and with a Pedro Primero English teacher as invigilator for all groups. Precise written instructions were given to all invigilators regarding how to manage the test (see annexe A9.6.). 5.5.1. Post-test results: reading comprehension, grammar test and listening tests. Figures 33 to 35 inclusive show the breakdown of scores for the various parts of the post-test written and listening task paper (except the written composition). The first trend that can be noticed is the prevalence for higher scores for the experimental group. The exception being the results of the listening test where the control group answered with more accuracy (Figure 33). The author has suggested earlier in this thesis that 5. Results 137 listening ability is inextricably inter-related with other communicative areas such as oral communication and need not be treated as a separate skill. However, the nature of typical pre-recorded material produced by ELT publishers and used in Spanish schools is a distant relative of the listening skills required in interactive dialogue. The former having little bearing on discourse and offering a context that involves ingesting linguistic content and subsequently commenting on it. Such pre-recorded testing tasks do possibly demand practice which is not found in the L2 production skill (speaking and listening during dialogue) advocated by the GW approach. Indeed, no pre-recorded materials were used in class throughout the entire GW course. The older, more experienced students with these pre-recorded materials may therefore have had an advantage. Figure 33. Post-test listening scores. Despite slightly higher scores from the experimental group on the reading comprehension task, results between both groups were similar. The author was aware of the difficulty of a task which centred on thematic learning, which necessarily incorporates less frequent lexis (in this case, professions). On the other hand, the author cannot be blinkered to the fact that the experimental course students were receiving instruction not only at school but also (for half the group) at an English academy. Success at some L2 tasks in the post-test could partly attributable to these “exterior” influences on test-takers’ English as well as to the experimental course content itself. 0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 Academy Non-academy All students Exp. Gp. Cont. Gp. A gesture-based approach to teaching English as a Second Language 138 Figure 34. Post-test reading comprehension scores. The results of the grammar test, however, could be considered revealing. Many of the questions concerned tense and aspect use. Past tense, for example, was a structure the experimental group had encountered more recently than the control group. Nevertheless, the experimental students showed slightly higher scores overall compared to their control group counterparts. The “noticing” and salient features of GW could be partly responsible. The results of this test perhaps suggest that explicit instruction may not be necessary for acquisition of structures. However, it must be pointed out here that although at pre-test learners were unaware of past tense, the author discovered that during the experimental course period academy students received introductory instruction in this area at the local private academy. Interestingly, however, the nonacademy experimental group showed superiority in this test compared to their control counterparts. Figure 35. Post-test grammar test scores 0 50 100 150 200 Academy Non-academy All students Exp. Gp. Cont. Gp. 0 20 40 60 80 100 120 Academy Non-academy All students Exp. Gp. Cont. Gp. 5. Results 139 To seek evidence that the experimental GW course itself was responsible for an acceleration in English acquisition among the course participants; an acceleration that surpasses the acquisition velocity of the native SL teaching approaches, clues must be sought in the areas where the GestureWay tool is most beneficial to learner interlanguage development. 5.6. The communicative areas of the post-test – results analysis. GW is by definition “a tool designed to accelerate and enhance L2 input and acquisition and provide increased velocity of salience” (see section 4.1.). The input involved is lexical, holistic with salience on form. The learners consistently speak in full meaningful and comprehended sentences in class through the interpretation of gestures. They are involved in stories both in their interpretation as well as their production. It is thus the areas of the test which demand competence for the global, holistic treatment of L2, the communicative, where analysis should prove most insightful. The first of these communicative areas is the written composition. Here rather longer peaks separating the experimental from control group scores can be appreciated (Figures 36 and 37). Figure 36. Post-test written composition total scores. 0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800 900 1000 Academy Non-academy All students Exp. Gp. Cont. Gp. A gesture-based approach to teaching English as a Second Language 140 Figure 37. Post-test written composition scores per student. A = academy student, N = non-academy student. A similar marking system and rationale was applied as that developed for the pre-test speaking test. The same A, B, C, 0 sentence categorisation was adopted with a similar weighting (see section 5.4.2.). The CV (correct choice of verb meaning; only one instance per different verb recorded) was again included allowing the evaluator to monitor the learners’ range of verbs they could use in fluency production-type output. A further language item appraisal introduced was a pragmatic one included in the pre-test speaking as a control check. During the numerous story renderings the experimental group learners were involved in during the course, there had been an ample exposure to conjunctions or linking words. A feature of competence in story production must be the learners’ capacity to reproduce linkers during fluency production. In Maxwell’s study comparing Canadian “immersion students” studying French with her own AIM students, who also used stories as material, she argues against bias towards the AIM test-takers by quoting Cummins (1996). 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 A A A A A A A A N N N N N N N N N Exp. Gp. Cont. Gp. 5. Results 141 The bias that did occur in this case was not in the vocabulary selection, but in the fact that the comparison group was less familiar with storytelling in the second language. However, because stories are a familiar part of all children's lives, it was felt that this would be the most appropriate choice as basis for spontaneous speech on the part of students who were interviewed. According to the Common Underlying Proficiency Model (Cummins 1996), there is transfer of an underlying cognitive/academic proficiency, common across languages. This same opinion will also argue for lack of bias for the speaking post-test activities, which were wholly based on storytelling. In addition, the coursebooks studied at Pedro Primero also included comic-strip stories as listening and writing activities. Whether, for experiment reliability, it is necessary to justify the introduction of linkers into the material of the experimental group because it is suspected the control group are not using linkers so frequently is also questionable. Linkers are a frequent lexical item and an essential part of speech and oral fluency in English, therefore to argue that experimental analysis lacks reliability on account of one group’s approach that offers diminished communicative focus is irrational. If Spanish primary school English teachers supported any other linguistic objectives that did not include encouraging learners to improve oral communication skills, not only would they be doing their students an enormous disservice they would also be contravening the guidelines of the Spanish Law of Education LOE 2/2006 (Internet source, LOE). The weighting applied to the use of linking words was a score of 2 points per linker used in correct context. Included in this category was relative pronoun use that linked a main clause to a subordinate one, such as the relative “when”. The conjunction “and” was not included. The scores reflecting the specific assessment of “A” sentence types, CV and linking word use can be viewed at Figures 38 to 40. No weighting has been applied to these scores; they show unique instances of usage of the item in question. To situate the instances of verb range (CV) and linker usage into context of text length, the average number of words used in the written composition was approximately sixty. A gesture-based approach to teaching English as a Second Language 142 Figure 38. Post-test written composition. Number of instances of “A” type sentences. (A = academy student, N = non-academy student.) Figure 39. Post-test written composition. Number of instances of linkers used. Text length 60 words approx. (A = academy student, N = non-academy student). 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 A A A A A A A A N N N N N N N N N Exp. Gp. Cont. Gp. 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 A A A A A A A A N N N N N N N N N Exp. Gp. Cont. Gp. 5. Results 143 Figure 40. Post-test written composition. Number of instances of different verbs used in correct semantic context (CV). Text length 60 words approx. (A = academy student, N = non-academy student). Lastly, a synthesis of tense and aspect usage in the written compositions was compiled. Test-takers were not required to produce perfectly spelt verbs and compound verbs; instances of the aspect and tense were noted that were clearly recognisable and correctly used yet possibly with mistaken orthography. Tense usage in productive tasks should provide evidence regarding advances in learner interlanguage and L2 competency levels (Figure 41). 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 A A A A A A A A N N N N N N N N N Exp. Gp. Cont. Gp. A gesture-based approach to teaching English as a Second Language 144 Figure 41. Post-test written composition. Instances of tenses and aspects used. A = academy students, N = non-academy, All = all students. The control group showed a tendency to produce more grammatically accurate sentences (“A” sentences) than the experimental group (Figure 38), however, the nonacademy students from the experimental group proved more accurate than their counterparts in the control group. It is significant that a proportion of the non-academy students were unable to produce one fully correct “A” sentence in the written composition test. One thing to note here was a comment from the Pedro Primero teacher invigilating the exam. Some of the slower therefore presumably weaker testtakers failed to finish the written post-test before the forty-five minutes had elapsed (the time dictated for the test was governed by the school English class schedule). Some of the written compositions (the last task in the post-test) were handed in with very little text and obviously unfinished (though none completely blank) so a time-factor may have been one explanation. Though other suggestions why this particular group of nonacademy students from the experimental group consistently failed to perform well are put forward in the qualitative section of Results (section 5.8.). 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 Exp. Gp. Cont. Gp. 5. Results 145 The number of instances of linking words was greater for the experimental group (Figure 39) and just under half of the control group test-takers (eight of the seventeen) failed to use even one conjunction. However, as a footnote to these findings, it must be pointed out that more than half of the control group test-takers included an unsolicited pragmatic feature into their composition texts. These students enumerated their sentences in the same way the pictures were enumerated. This unsuspected technique meant they were not required to link one clause to the next or rather do so less frequently. Why this happened is unknown and did not appear in the rigorous instruction sheet handed out to the invigilators (see annexe A9.6.). None of the experimental test-takers adopted this practice. This unfortunate occurrence means an accurate comparison between the two groups in the ability to use linkers becomes frustrated19. The experimental group demonstrated a tendency to express their English with a greater selection of verbs (CV) than the control group (Figure 40). Even four of the weaker non-academy students used a repertoire of verb choice comparable to the control group academy students. Again, the scores for linking word and CV values may have been higher for both groups had test-takers been permitted more time to finish the written composition. Lastly, test-takers from the experimental group showed an increased tendency to use past tense in their written composition yet no instruction was given on the choice of tense for this task (Figure 41). The control group preferred present tense (especially present simple) to express themselves. This finding is interesting as it will be remembered that the experimental group possessed no detectable knowledge of past tense awareness during the pre-test. Even the non-academy students of the experimental 19 As a postscript to this comment see the results of the study of linkers in the speaking post-test. A gesture-based approach to teaching English as a Second Language 248 c) Preguntas en presente simple. Escribe las preguntas de estas frases. Ejemplo: Karim and Tom skate in winter Do Karim and Tom skate in winter? 1) You wear a jumper in winter. ? 2) The monkey eats ice-cream in summer. ? 3) The brown bear sleeps in caves in winter. ? 4) Lucy goes to the beach in summer. ? 5) I play in the park in winter. ? d) Preguntas con el verbo “to be”. Rellena cada espacio con la forma correcta del verbo “to be” para hacer preguntas. Ejemplo: Is Lucy a good student? 1) ___ Karim in the park? 4) ___ the hospital in the town? 2) ___ you Spanish? 5) ___ Mum and Dad in the museum? 3) ___ the aliens on the moon? Annexes 249 e) Frases negativas con el verbo “to be”. Escribe estas frases con el verbo “to be” en el negativo. Ejemplo: My dad is from the UK. My dad isn’t from the UK. 1) Lucy is at school. Lucy ______ at school. 4) The boys and girls are in the gym. The boys and girls ______ in the gym. 2) There is a lion in the zoo. There ______ a lion in the zoo. 5) I am very happy today. I___ ______ very happy today. 3) There are monkeys in the zoo. There ______ monkeys in the zoo. f) La forma negativa – los verbos. Escribe estas frases con el verbo en el negativo. Ejemplo: You like eggs and sausages. You don’t like eggs and sausages. 1) I want an ice-cream. I ______ ______ an ice-cream. 4) Karim goes to the cinema with Mum and Dad. Karim ______ ______ to the cinema with Mum and Dad. 2) This insect eats vegetables. This insect ______ ______ vegetables. 5) The children can see the planets through the telescope. The children ______ ______ the planets through the telescope. 3) She’s got a ladybird in her bag. She ______ ______ a ladybird in her bag. A gesture-based approach to teaching English as a Second Language 250 g) Presente continuo para acciones en el presente. Estas personas y animales están haciendo cosas ahora mismo. Utiliza las palabras para escribir las preguntas como en el ejemplo. Ejemplo: What Mum cook What is Mum cooking? 1) What he drink ? 2) Where they go ? 3) What Lucy wear ? 4) Where the children play ? 5) What you write ? h) El pasado de los verbos. ¿Cuál es el pasado de estos verbos? Ejemplo: Make - made_ 1) Paint - __________ 4) Go - __________ 2) Play - __________ 5) See - __________ 3) Eat - __________ Annexes 251 i) Comprensión lectora. Lee el texto y contesta las preguntas. Escribe tus respuestas en inglés. Karim is on holiday. He likes to do lots of different things. In the mornings he goes canoeing. In the afternoons he goes swimming with his friends in the river. He never goes climbing. At six o’clock he has dinner and in the evening Karim and his Mum tell stories. 1) What does Karim do in the mornings? ? 2) What does Karim never do? ? 3) Where does Karim go swimming? ? 4) What time does Karim have dinner? ? 5) When does Karim and his Mum tell stories? ? j) Texto escrito. El día de Lucy y tu día. Lee este texto: Lucy gets up at six-thirty. At seven o’clock she has breakfast and she leaves the house at half past seven. Lucy arrives at school at eight o’clock and has her English class at nine thirty. At 12 o’clock she plays basketball with her friends. Ahora escribe acerca de tu día. Puedes utilizar las palabras y expresiones en el texto del día de Lucy para ayudarte si quieres. I get up at… A gesture-based approach to teaching English as a Second Language 252 k) Completa estas preguntas con una palabra adecuada por espacio. Ejemplo 1: Paco: “ What do you do on Saturdays?” Sara: “I play football.” Ejemplo 2: Paco: “ What time do you have breakfast?” Sara: “I have breakfast at 8 o’clock.” 1, Paco: “________ do you get to school every morning?” Sara: “I walk.” 2, Paco: “________ football team do you prefer: Betis or Sevilla?” Sara: “I prefer Betis.” 3, Paco: “________ do you play with at school?” Sara: “I play with Carmen.” 4, Paco: “________ are you wearing your coat?” Sara: “Because it’s cold.” 5, Paco: “________ ________ money have you got?” Sara: “I’ve got five euros.” 6, Paco: “________ ________ do you go swimming?” Sara: “I go swimming three times a week. Annexes 253 l) Completa estas preguntas con una palabra adecuada por espacio. Esta es la agenda de Sara para la semana que viene. Escribe una frase completa EN INGLÉS que dice qué va a hacer Sara cada día. MONDAY Carmen (telephone after school). TUESDAY Basketball at school (6 o’clock) WEDNESDAY Paco (help him with maths) THURSDAY Cinema with Dad (8 o’clock) FRIDAY Homework (do it in the evening) SATURDAY English study. SUNDAY Bed all day. 1, On Monday, Sara ________________________________________________. 2, On Tuesday, Sara ________________________________________________. 3, On Wednesday, Sara _____________________________________________. 4, On Thursday, Sara _______________________________________________. 5, On Friday, Sara __________________________________________________. 6, On Saturday, Sara ________________________________________________. 7, On Sunday, Sara _________________________________________________. A gesture-based approach to teaching English as a Second Language 254 A8.1. Warmer exercise before speaking test. Dime qué ves en cada uno de estos dibujos. Por ejemplo: (the teacher named an object). 6 / 13 / 53 / 267 4 / 15 / 89 / 376 3 / 19 / 86 / 472 8 / 12 / 18 / 573 Annexes 255 A8.2. Speaking pre-test score sheet and questions. Name S1: Name S2: Question 1. Vocab test: 0 – 10 S1: 0 – 10 S2: Question 2. General questions: A = Correct full-sentence answer. B = Minimum correct answer. C = Partially accurate. 0 = Not understood, silent or wrong answer. 1) Where are you from? 1) Where do you live? 2) How many brothers and sisters have you got? 2) How many English classes have you got this week? 3) What day is it today? 3) What month is it? 4) What time do you have lunch? 4) What time do you have breakfast? 5) What’s the weather like today? 5) What’s the weather like in summer? 6) What is your favourite sport? 6) What is your favourite food? < CHANGE TURNS > 7) Where is the pen? 7) Where is the pencil? 8) Can you ride a horse? 8) Can you play the violin? 9) What food do you like? 9) What sports do you like? 10) Where do you go on holiday in summer? 10) Where do you go at weekends? 11) How do you spell “table”? 11) How do you spell “chair”? 12) What numbers are these? (see vocab sheet) 12) What numbers are these? (see vocab sheet) Question 3. Picture and story questions: A = Correct full-sentence answer.* B = Lesser partially correct 2 word+ answer.* C = One-word answers.* 0 = Not understood, silence, Spanish, nonsense, noun-naming. a) Mira este dibujo. ¿Me puedes decir en inglés qué está pasado aquí? (picture 1) a) Mira este dibujo. ¿Me puedes decir en inglés qué está pasado aquí? (picture 2) b) Empieza otra vez aquí y cuéntame en inglés toda esta historieta: 1, 2 y 3. (Story 1) b) Empieza otra vez aquí y cuéntame en inglés toda esta historieta: 1, 2 y 3. (Story 2) *At least one action verb required in question 3a to continue to 3b. A gesture-based approach to teaching English as a Second Language 256 Story 1. Bilbrough 2014. Annexes 257 Story 2. Bilbrough 2014. A gesture-based approach to teaching English as a Second Language 264 A9.6. Writing, reading and listening test – instructions to invigilators. Note: This exam can be done in 45 minutes but you will need to start on time and have the first mp3 file ready and sound already tested so there are no delays. Give out all exams packs. The pages are in order. You will start with the listening tests. PLEASE ENSURE THERE IS NO COPYING. Ask students to write their FULL name at the top of the first exam sheet. Tell students in Spanish: “You should use pencils. If you make a mistake, you should rub it out or cross it out clearly.” 1) Listening Part 1 (Duration 4 minutes) - First page on the exam pack. - Tell students in Spanish: “You are now going to do a listening test. You will hear this listening exercise twice. You should draw lines only. Listen to the example.” - Open mp3 “listening-part_1” from pen-drive. (There is no need to explain anything else. The example question is explained in the recording. Play the COMPLETE mp3 only ONCE. (The listening is repeated twice on this recording.) 2) Listening Part 2 (Duration 3 minutes and 10 seconds) - Students turn to the second page of the exam pack. - Tell students in Spanish: “You are now going to do another listening test. You will hear this listening exercise twice. Write one or more words in the spaces.” - Open mp3 “listening-part_2” from pen-drive. Tell students: (There is no need to explain anything else. The example question is explained in the recording. Play the COMPLETE mp3 only ONCE. (The listening is repeated twice on this recording.) The rest of the exam is reading and writing but you will go through the instructions of each page before they begin. 3) Reading and writing Part 1 (10 questions) - Students turn to the third page of the exam pack. - Tell students in Spanish: “Choose the correct words and write ONE word on each line.” 4) Grammar (10 questions) - Tell students in Spanish: “Now turn to the next page. Look at the example. Write one word from the list of four words in the space for each question.” 5) Story writing. - Tell students in Spanish: “Look at the next page. It is a comic. Here you must write a story about the five pictures. Write about 60 words. Write the story under the comic. Please do not help students with any questions they have about the exam answers. Help on how to do the exam (after you have explained everything) should be kept to a minimum. PLEASE CHECK FULL NAMES ARE ON FIRST SHEET WHEN YOU COLLECT IN THE EXAMS. (Please separate my “quinto” students from the others.) Annexes 265 Annexe 10. Post-test speaking. A10.1. Part 1. Telling a story from the comic strip. Flyers CUP 2013. A10.2. Part 2. Transcript of recording and picture story-guide of pre-listening prompt. Policeman Plod felt very happy. The weather was better than yesterday. The sun was warmer and the sky was bluer. Policeman Plod was walking along the street smiling. Suddenly, he saw an old man and woman coming towards him. Policeman Plod saw they had a penguin with them. 'Excuse me', they said. 'We found this penguin in the street. What can we do?' The policeman answered, 'You must take it to the zoo'. The old man and woman said, 'Good idea'. The next day Policeman Plod was walking along the street again when he saw the same old man and woman with the same penguin. He said, 'Why didn't you take that penguin to the zoo?' The old man answered. 'We did. And he enjoyed it very much so now we're taking him to the park and this evening we're going to take him to the cinema.' (After listening, test-takers told the story using the same picture prompt.) Compilation from Internet images. Bilbrough 2014. A gesture-based approach to teaching English as a Second Language 266 Annexe 11. Examples of story materials used for gesturing. A11.1. Lessons 1 and 2 of experimental course. The initial list of words comprises the presentation phase. The TR uttered and gestured these words while referring to the illustration on the screen at the front of the class. The students gestured and uttered each word with the TR. Then the Silent Sign phase follows. The TR gestures in silence while the students gesture and “tell the story” in chorus. Part 1 (presentation phase). hello and welcome. my name is Michael. look, listen, gesture and repeat. house (see picture), man, window, plant, table, (small table, big table) teapot, cup, cat, television, picture, head, cupboard, bottle, sitting-room, ship. look! this is a man, this is Arthur, Arthur pinkerton. this is Arthur’s cat. this is Arthur’s television. this is Arthur’s table. this is Arthur’s head. look, listen, gesture and repeat. on - the television in on the table (repeat). in – the bottle is in the cupboard (repeat). next to – the cup is next to the teapot (repeat). under – the cat is under the table (repeat). above – the picture is above Arthur’s head (repeat). (Silent Sign phase.) Look! This is a house. Look! This is a sitting-room. In the sitting-room there is a man. His name is Arthur Pinkerton. Arthur is at home. At “house” – no – at home. Arthur is at home. Arthur is in the sitting-room. This is a window. Here, there are two plants. This is a table. Here, there is a teapot on the table and next to the teapot there is a cup. Arthur Pinkerton has got a cat. It is Arthur’s cat. It is under the table watching television. The television is on the left of the sitting-room. Over here, there is a television. It is Arthur’s television. It is on a small table. On the left of the window there are two pictures. Over here, there are two pictures. There is another picture above Arthur's head. It is a picture of a ship. Annexes 267 Part 2 (presentation phase). dresser; cupboard (a cupboard / two cupboards / three cupboards); bottle; glass; plate (a plate / two plates / three plates / four plates / five plates); three big plates, two small plates; drawer (a drawer, two drawers); this draw is open, this drawer is closed. look, listen, gesture and repeat. behind – the dresser is behind Arthur below or under (below is under then hand moves down and stops and shakes once.) top – at the top at the top of the cupboard there are three cupboards. bottom – at the bottom at the bottom of the cupboard there are two drawers. on the right – on the right of the sitting-room there is a dresser. on the left – on the left of the sitting-room there are two pictures. look, gesture and speak. (Silent Sign phase.) Look! On the right of the sitting-room, over here behind Arthur Pinkerton there is a dresser. At the top of the dresser there are three cupboards. In the cupboard on the left over here, there is a bottle and there is a glass. Below the cupboards there are five plates; three big plates and two small plates. There are two drawers at the bottom of the dresser. The drawer on the right This drawer here is open and the drawer on the left here is closed. Bilbrough 2014. A gesture-based approach to teaching English as a Second Language 268 A11.2. Lesson 12. Examples of published story materials used for gesturing. The story here is taken from a graded reader (Laird 1998). The pages of the book were projected on a screen. To complete the whole book required several classes. Simon and the Spy. Part 1. (Presentation phase.) station train policeman / policemen. work / are working work hard a spy Find / Stop / Catch (students act out) student(s) jeans / suits / revise clothes they can see in pic. What’s the time now? umbrella fast / slow bag (Silent Sign phase.) “Simon and the Spy”. Page 1. Laird 1998. Annexes 269 A11.3. Lesson 25. Presentation and Silent Sign phases. (Presentation phase.) holiday fed up sky grey / blue what's the weather like? (like. i like soup...no..it's different) cloudy / cold (opp. of hot) / windy / rain / hot / sunny all the time (he doesn't stop watching tv etc.) summer (opp. of summer is winter) love (fred loves spain) want leave (some place. tearful farewell.) stay (in a hotel) swim sea lie beach month (7 days are a week and 4 weeks are a month) (Silent Sign phase.) Fred lives in England but now he is on holiday in Spain. He's fed up with England because the sky is always grey and cloudy and it's cold and windy and it rains all the time. It doesn't rain in Spain in summer. It's hot and sunny and the sky is always blue. Fred loves Spain and he doesn't want to leave. He wants to stay in Spain. He wants to swim in the warm sea and lie on the beach every day. In the evening he wants to go out to expensive restaurants. He stays one month in a hotel. Then the day comes to leave. Fred goes to pay his hotel bill but he hasn't got any money. The hotel manager is very angry and he says, 'Pay your bill or you don't leave here.' Fred thinks and then says: 'All right, what is the weather like here in winter?' A gesture-based approach to teaching English as a Second Language 270 These comprehension questions on the story above where also given through Silent Sign. The students, in effect, asked themselves the questions and then answered them. 1, Why is Fred in Spain. Because he is on holiday. 2, What's the weather like in England? The sky is always grey and cloudy and it's cold and windy and it rains all the time. 3, What's the weather like in Spain in summer? It's hot and sunny and the sky is always blue. 4, What does Fred want to do every day? He wants to swim in the warm sea and lie on the beach. 5, What does Fred want to do in the evenings? He wants to go out to expensive restaurants. 6, Why can't Fred pay his hotel bill? Because he hasn't got any money. 7, Does Fred want to stay in Spain? Yes, he does. Bilbrough 2014. Annexes 271 A11.4. Quick jokes for Silent Sign. Several short jokes such as the following example appeared to help students focus better on the material owing to the more varied and changing input. Words shown in red were presented before the Silent Sign phase. One day, Dad was in the kitchen cooking the lunch and little Johnny was in the sitting-room trying to do his homework. But he was feeling sleepy. Suddenly, Johnny heard a noise outside in the garden. He decided to look. So, he stood up and looked out the window. He couldn’t believe his eyes! He thought he was dreaming! He saw his mother fighting a very big green monster. The monster was very ugly, with long hair, long, sharp teeth and horrible red eyes. Johnny ran to his Dad in the kitchen. “Dad, Dad”, he shouted. “A monster is fighting Mum in the garden!” “Don’t worry!” said Johnny’s Dad. After lunch we’ll take the monster to hospital. Image for projection to students. Bilbrough 2014. A gesture-based approach to teaching English as a Second Language 272 A11.5. Picture story prompts for fluency production tasks post Silent Sign. This was a TR produced work of a Nasreddin story originally commissioned by the British Council for the Hands Up project and used in this experimental course (Bilbrough, 2015 Internet sources, Nasreddin “The Dinner party”). Learners worked in pairs or groups, reordered the pictures and told the story to each other orally. “The dinner party” Bilbrough 2015. Annexes 273 A11.6. Lesson 40. Post Silent Sign stories for retelling with written prompts. These were three short story jokes the students learnt through Silent Sign in one class. At the production stage, the three images were projected on the screen with the written prompts. The students then retold the stories to each other in pairs. Johnny monster / Mummy / don’t like… / don’t worry… / leave it / vegetables Mother to another / son / how lucky! / sweets? / no / watch TV? / no / late? / never / 3 months old Patient / doctor / must help / I shout / doctor: sit down, tell me / shouted / telling you / idiot Pictures and prompts for reproduction. Chistes Fantásticos (2014).