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Poster #110 - Can Gestures Enhance Math Learning for English Learners?

Fri, March 22, 9:45 to 11:00am, Baltimore Convention Center, Floor: Level 1, Exhibit Hall B

Integrative Statement

Co-speech gesture, as a second channel of communication to speech, improves memory and comprehension of speech for both child and adult listeners (Kelly & Church, 1998, 1997). Children start gesturing at an early age, before they can speak and their gestures precede early spoken words. Gesturing during math instruction of symbolic equivalence (i.e., understanding the meaning of the equal sign) has been shown to be significantly beneficial for learning in second and third grade children (Koumoutsakis et al., 2016). However, the impact of gesture during instruction has only been examined in monolingual English-speaking children. Given that gesture conveys universal images related to the speech it accompanies, we asked whether gesture during math instruction could help English Learners (EL) who have just entered the U.S. We examined the effect of gestures in math instruction on learning for EL (N = 157) children and Monolingual English speaking children, (N = 115), 7-9 years old, from 24 Chicago public classrooms. Classrooms participated in a pretest-instruction-posttest experiment designed to teach pre-algebra math problems (3 + 4 + 2 = ____ + 3). This type of problem is difficult for second graders because they do not know what the equal sign means. Children either see the equal sign as a directive to add all the numbers or add all of the numbers up to the equal sign. Classrooms completed a pretest with problems like 3 + 4 + 2 = ____ + 3. Each class was randomly assigned to watch either math equivalence instruction with accompanying gesture or without accompanying gesture. Video instruction was followed by a posttest of problems like the pretest problems. Learning was measured as an increase in correct solutions from the pre- to the posttest. We found that children were significantly more likely to learn from instruction with gesture (26%) versus instruction without gesture (15%, p = .02). However, surprisingly ELs did not benefit from instruction that included gesture (instruction with gesture = 20% vs. instruction without gesture = 17% learned, p = .62). English Speakers did benefit from instruction with gesture (33% vs. instruction without gesture = 11%, p = .006). Additionally, we found that ELs learned more from instruction with gesture in English (33%) than English instruction without gesture (18%, p = .008). ELs receiving Spanish instructions failed to learn regardless of the presence or absence of gesture (instruction with gesture = 4% learned vs. instruction without gesture = 4% learned). This was a puzzling result. One explanation for this result is that the roles of language (Spanish vs. English accompanied by gesture) may be different for children just entering the United States. ELs may be so focused on learning English that Spanish instruction was not beneficial for math learning. Another explanation may be that ELs are experiencing cognitive load, activating 2 languages and seeing instruction with 2 modalities (speech and gesture). These results suggest that gestured instruction should be carefully considered when teaching math to children whose native language is not English.

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