Conversational hand gestures of student teachers to give instruction in microteaching class of English teacher education department at Sunan Ampel State Islamic University Surabaya

It is very essential for student teachers to convey
clear instructions during their microteaching class to prepare themselves better in the real teaching process at school. Student teachers need to have specific techniques to give instruction. The most advantageous technique is gesture because gesture can clarify unclear teacher talk and give visual aids in comprehending the instruction. Specifically, conversational hand gestures are associated to promote students’ better understanding that may lead to better involvement in the class activity. There are four types of conversational hand gestures to mediate instruction: iconic, metaphoric, deictic, and beat. This study is qualitative descriptive design with naturalistic approach. In particular, 4 student teachers in four different microteaching classes were analyzed by videotaping them during their teaching practice. The student teachers were interviewed to support the data. Based on the findings and the discussion, this research figured out that the conversational hand gestures are supportively enacted in five different organizational steps: (1) beat and iconic gestures as an attention getter, (2) deictic, iconic, and beat gestures in delivering the direction of the instruction, (3) iconic, deictic, and beat gestures in mediating to explain expectation, (4) deictic, iconic, and beat gestures in restating the instruction, and (5) deictic and beat gestures in following up the instruction. Furthermore, the findings showed that there were only three out of four gestures that commonly used by student teachers to give instruction: deictic, iconic and beat gestures. Therefore, it can be concluded that student teachers have enacted the conversational hand gestures to support the instruction and help students understand the instruction better.