Special issue articles
Evolution is an arc along a timeline
Metaphors embodied in teachers’ gesture support abstract conceptualization and academic lexicon acquisition at primary
school
Growing evidence shows the role of teachers gestures not only in L2 learning (
Stam & Tellier, 2021) but also in supporting learning in the L1 classroom (
Alibali et al., 2014;
Crowder, 1996;
Wilson et al., 2014). The current study aims at contributing to this last perspective. Based on data from a 3rd grade
plurilingual classroom in an Italian school, it observes the ‘catchments’ (
McNeill,
2000) in teacher’s gesticulation during a cycle of lessons on “The origin of life”. The analysis identifies conceptual
components based on the
time is space metaphor associated with gestures, and observes their alignment with lexical
items – either technical or common words (
evolution, ages, ancestors, archaic;
change, back,
old) – in speech. The gesture-word association supports both the conceptualization of the notions and the acquisition of
the related lexicon: gestures connect recurring concepts to their different verbalisations, ensuring a conceptually coherent
representation over the lesson; they establish synonimic relations between technical and common words; and they can also work as
memory triggers towards and between concepts and lexical units.
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 2.The study
- 3.Data analysis and discussion
- 3.1Catchments and their relation with the lessons’ key concepts
- 3.2Semantic relations between the catchments and their lexical affiliates
- 3.3Catchments in the interaction between teacher and students
- 4.Concluding remarks
- Notes
-
References
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Cited by (1)
Cited by one other publication
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2024.
The role of reticence in the comprehension of metaphorical taboo expressions in the foreign language.
International Journal of Applied Linguistics 34:2
► pp. 746 ff.
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