Gesture and Multimodality in Second Language Acquisition

This timely text offers a how-to guide for analyzing gesture and multimodality in second language learning and teaching. Expert contributors from around the world outline the theoretical basis for each topic and offer clear descriptions of data collection and analysis methods for classroom, naturalistic, quasi-experimental, and experimental settings. The book further offers a rich array of ancillary pedagogical material and points out areas ripe for future study. This will be an invaluable resource for undergraduate and graduate students, faculty, and researchers of applied linguistics, communications, education, and psychology interested in gesture studies and multimodality in L2 learning and teaching.

Author Biography

Gale Stam (PhD, University of Chicago) is Professor Emerita at National Louis University, Chicago. Her research interests include language and culture, language and cognition, gesture and second language acquisition, and teachers’ gestures. She has published articles on changes in thinking for speaking, the importance of looking at gesture in second language (L2) acquisition, gesture and lexical retrieval in an L2, and language teachers’ gestures. She has co-edited two volumes on speech and gesture: one with McCafferty, Gesture: Second Language Acquisition and Classroom Research (2008) and the other with Ishino, Integrating Gestures: The Interdisciplinary Nature of Gesture ( 2011).

Kimberly (Buescher) Urbanski (PhD, Penn State University) is Assistant Professor of Applied Linguistics in Applied Linguistics at the University of Massachusetts-Boston. Her research interests include second language (L2) learning and teaching, L2 literacy, students’ and teachers’ use of gesture, French prepositions, and teacher education preparation. She has published on gesture research methodology, L2 French preposition pedagogy using cognitive linguistics and sociocultural theory, and L2 literacy pedagogy.