Languages in a Global World
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Languages in a Global World

Learning for Better Cultural Understanding

The rise of globalisation makes language competencies more valuable, both at individual and societal levels. This book examines the links between globalisation and the way we teach and learn languages. It begins by asking why some individuals are more successful than others at learning non-native languages, and why some education systems, or countries, are more successful than others at teaching languages.

The book comprises chapters by different authors on the subject of language learning. There are chapters on the role of motivation; the way that languages, cultures and identities are interconnected; the insights that neuroscience provides; migrants, their education and opportunities to learn languages; language learning and teaching in North America; and new approaches to language learning.

Publication Date :
24 Apr 2012
DOI :
10.1787/9789264123557-en
 
Chapter
 

Seeing the world through our hands

A cross-cultural gesture review You do not have access to this content

Authors:
Matthew Shapiro
Pages :
121–131
DOI :
10.1787/9789264123557-12-en

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Our spontaneous gestures greatly enrich our speech. A burgeoning new field of research investigating communicative gestures has begun to uncover the ways we use our hands to communicate. Recently, this field has broadened its focus to include cross-cultural analyses of gesture use. In this review, I summarise recent findings stemming from this body of literature. I then discuss the role of gesture in second language instruction and acquisition, arguing that a focus on gesture can augment non.native language pedagogy. Lastly, I present neuroscientific findings providing evidence that gesture does indeed facilitate the process of communicating in a second language. I hope to convince the reader that gesture has already taught us abundance about how people around the world communicate and, in turn, students will communicate more effectively with people around the world if we teach the importance of integrating gestures in their speech.