How are teachers hand gestures defined?
Within the concept of hand-gesture scaffolding, research has identified five different types of teacher gestures: • deictic gestures – pointing movements to provide directions and attract attention (eg. the teacher pointing to a puzzle piece); • representational gestures – imitating the shape or motion of an object (eg. the teacher moving her left palm to her right one to indicate putting two objects together); • metaphoric gestures – to demonstrate abstract concepts (eg. the teacher circling an index finger by her temple to indicate ‘thinking’); • emblematic gestures – conventional gestures recognised by people from the same community or culture (eg. raising a thumb to indicate ‘very good’); and • beating gestures – repetitive gestures to emphasise a point (eg. the teacher repeatedly and forcefully moving an index finger in the air to emphasise the importance of what she is saying.
