Seeing With Two Eyes: A Teacher's Use of Gestures in Questioning and Revoicing to Engage English Language Learners in the Repair of Mathematical Errors

This revelatory case study examines a 5th-grade teacher's orchestration of discourse and interaction to create opportunities for English language learners to participate in the repair of mathematical errors during a unit on finding the area of geometric shapes. The analysis of discourse takes on a binocular perspective of considering gesture and speech as a unity (McNeill, 1992). The teacher's pointing, representational, and writing gestures were studied in relation to her questioning and revoicing. This research was guided by a social learning theory that characterizes learning as active and interactive participation in communities of practice (Lave Wenger, 1998). The findings detail how the teacher used gestures in grounding her questioning, revoicing students' strategies, and narrating the meaning of geometric features.