Limited research has studied the emotional, cognitive, and social functions of multimodality in student participation in classroom interactions. Some research has shown evidence of active participation through private speech (Ohta, 2001), pauses (Stam & Tellier, 2017), and gestures (van Compernolle & Williams, 2013). Their findings challenge the assumptions that quiet students are passive learners, and that little verbal communication indicates limited learning. However, there has been minimal research looking at how these students' gestures contribute to a collective Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) (Vygotsky, 1978). Even less research has paid attention to emergent multilinguals learning their L3 with a limited L2 and an unshared L1. To better understand these language learners and the functions of their multimodality in classroom interactions, we investigated the verbal and nonverbal interactions of a Mandarin L1 student learning French with English L1 students in a 12-week French literacy program. The program featured Concept-Based Instruction (Gal'perin, 1989) and a Division of Labor Pedagogy (adapted from Cole, 1996; Petrovsky, 1985). The Division of Labor allowed each student to play an essential role in the collective which was important to their individual and group development. Group meetings were video-recorded then transcribed and coded for the focal student's embodied actions including gaze, nodding, and vicarious responses. We implemented the methods of conversation analysis (Sidnell & Stivers, 2013), gesture coding (McNeill, 1992), and microgenetic analysis (Lantolf & Thorne, 2006). The findings showed that even in silence, through her gaze and nodding, the student was highly attuned to speech events related to her tasks in pair and group interactions. Her gestures and minimal speech suggested that she was active in meaning-making and contributed to the development of the group's ZPD. We argue that both verbal and non-verbal elements in classroom interactions are equally significant to understand students' participation, contribution, and development.
References
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Gal' perin, P. Y. (1989). Mental actions as a basis for the formation of thoughts and images. Soviet Psychology, 27(2), 45–64.
Lantolf, J. P., & Thorne, S. L. (2006). Sociocultural theory and genesis of second language development. Oxford University Press.
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Stam, G., & Tellier, M. (2017). The sound of silence: The functions of gestures in pauses in native and non-native interaction. In R. B. Church, M. W. Alibali, & S. D. Kelly (Eds.), Gesture Studies (Vol. 7, pp. 353–377). John Benjamins.
van Compernolle, R. A. van, & Williams, L. (2013). Group dynamics in the language classroom: Embodied participation as active reception in the collective Zone of Proximal Development. Classroom Discourse, 4(1), 42–62.
Vygotsky, L. (1978). Mind in society: Development of higher psychological processes. Harvard University Press.
