Gestures and Language Learning

In the late 1960s, James Asher proposed a Total Physical Response approach to language teaching. While some of the specific hypotheses on which his approach was based might need revision in the light of recent theories, the underlying idea that enacting language physically can improve memory and aid retrieval is being strengthened by an increasing body of research evidence.

Early research in this area demonstrated enhanced memory for concrete words learned in association with gestures, in particular for action words. Manuela Macedonia and Thomas Knösche from the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Science in Leipzig, Germany recently conducted a study to determine the extent to which this might also be true for the learning of more abstract words.

Twenty German-speaking participants were taught a set of sentences in an artificial language called Vimmi. For half of the sentences, the participants saw the written word, heard it spoken aloud and then repeated it (audiovisual condition). The other half of the sentences were taught with accompanying gestures, which participants saw in a video and then copied as they repeated the word (enactment condition). The training was held over six days.

The researchers were interested in whether there would be a different effect for different classes of words, and also whether the treatment would affect participants’ ability to use the vocabulary learned to generate new sentences rather than just reproduce the sentences and words they had learned.

What were the results?

• In a task where participants were asked to write as many items as possible of the new Vimmi vocabulary and give the meanings for the words in German, participants were able to recall more words learned in the enactment condition than the audiovisual condition. This superior performance in the enactment condition appeared from day three of the training onwards.

• Results for translation tasks where participants were given words in one language and asked to translate them into the other showed a similar superiority for the enactment condition, but once again this appeared from day three onwards.

• In a task where participants were instructed to produce new sentences using the vocabulary they had learned, participants included significantly more words learned in the enactment condition. The significance of the difference increased over time from the third day.

• In item analyses for the various tasks performed, it was found that concrete nouns were the easiest to memorize, followed by verbs, abstract nouns, and then adverbs. The advantage for the enactment condition held across all categories of word.

What might these results mean?

This study confirmed previous studies, which had shown that single, concrete items could be learned better though association with gesture. The study showed that the advantage of adding gesture holds when words are learned in sentences, rather than in isolation and for vocabulary that is more abstract.

Some participants believed that enacting would “disturb” their learning, but in fact the opposite proved true. It seems that this advantage takes a few days to become evident, however.

The researchers believe that the superior performance found in the enactment condition can be attributed to the nature of our brains as multi-modal perceivers of information. Older cognitive theories described perception in modular ways, but more recent research has shown that the brain’s circuitry is highly interconnected. They believe that including enacting in addition to seeing, hearing and speaking the word may provide the kind of multi-modal information necessary for optimal processing.

This may result in a more complex representation of the word in memory and thus aid retrieval. The implications are obvious: we need to get students enacting language as well as reading it, listening to it, and speaking it.

Reference

Macedonia, M. and Knösche, T. (2011) “Body in Mind: How Gestures Empower Foreign Language Learning.” Mind, Brain and Education, 5 4 pp. 196-211.

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