Lilian Simones

Franziska Schroeder

Matthew Rodger

Queen’s University Belfast

(Funded by DEL)

COMMUNICATING MUSICAL KNOWLEDGE

THROUGH GESTURE:

PIANO TEACHERS’ GESTURAL BEHAVIOURS

ACROSS DIFFERENT LEVELS OF STUDENT PROFICIENCY

Gesture IS important for teaching and learning

effectiveness

Teachers and Learners gestures (Goldin-Meadow et al., 2009)

Conceptual understanding (Yoon et al., 2011).

Learning is maintained over time (Cook, Mitchell & Goldin-Meadow, 2008).

Alignment and intersubjectivity (Du Bois, 2001; Mondada, 2006; Sacks et al., 1974; de Fornel, 1992; Pickering & Garrod, 2004; Müller, 2008; Zlatev et al., 2008).

Index

I. METHODOLOGY

II. RESULTS

III. CONCLUSIONS/IMPLICATIONS

I. METHODOLOGY

I. METHODOLOGY Research Questions

What gestures are developed by teachers while teaching piano to different levels of

student proficiency?

What similarities and differences can be found in teachers individual gestural approach while teaching piano to different

levels of student proficiency?

I. METHODOLOGY Participants: TEACHERS

Gender

Age 39-55

Experience 10-30 teaching

Education PhD

Accreditation All specific teaching accreditation

I. METHODOLOGY Participants: STUDENTS

Experience

Elementary grade 1 Grade 4 grade 8

Gender

2 1 1 2 3 0 2 1

Age [5-7] [8-10] [11- 15] [21-35]

Group ILess

experienced

Group IIMore

experienced

I. METHODOLOGY PROCEDURE

Teach/learn in one-to-one environment:

2 contrasting pieces during three consecutive lessons.

6 video recordings per Dyad

(3 piece 1 and 3 piece II)

total 72 video recordings

(1st 3mins of each analysed)

I. METHODOLOGY Analysis

Qualitative

observation

Statistical

Analysis

Spontaneous co-verbal gestures

(McNeill 1992; 2005)

DeicticIconic

MetaphoricCo-Verbal Beats

Aim:Compariso

n

Poisson Regression

Spontaneous co-musical

gestures (Simones, Schroeder, Rodger 2013, submitted)

Musical BeatsConducting

stylePlaying piano

MimicsTouch

Elan Software (Max Planck Institute of Psycholinguistics,

Nijmegen, the Netherlands, Lausberg & Sloetjes 2009)

Cohen’s Kappa: .82 (p<.05)

categorisation

I. Gestures developed by the three teachers combined

II. Gestures developed per teacher: agreement/disagreement

RESULTS

Touch

Mimics

Playing Piano

Conducting Style

Musical Beats

Co-Verbal Beats

Metaphoric

Iconic

Deictic

0 50 100150200250300350400

Less expe-rienced students

More expe-rienced students

RESULTS I. Gestures developed by the three teachers combined

R: 0.82 P: 0.008

R: 2.03 P<0.001

R: 4.67 P: <0.001R: 2.08 P: <0.001R: 0.98 P:0.92R: 13.0 P: <0.001R: 0.90 P:0.25R: 0.33 <0.001R: 0.07 P<0.001

Results II. Gestures developed per teacher AgreementsDEICTIC

MIMICS

TOUCH

• METAPHORIC• ICONIC• CO-VERBAL BEATS• CONDUCTING STYLE (*)

Less experienced

(all teachers)

More experienced

(all teachers)

Statistically significant difference for all teachers

(…) for two teachers

(…) for one teacher

Results II. Gestures developed per teacher Disagreement

Musical Beats

Playing Piano

• T1: Less experienced• T2: Less experienced• T3: More experienced (p< 0.003)

• T1: More experienced (p< o.o5)• T2: Less experienced• T3: Less experienced (p< 0.04)

III. CONCLUSIONS/ IMPLICATIONS

Conclusions/ implications

• 1) Didactic intention Gesture type

• 2) Gestural Scaffolding approach

Should a gesture pedagogy

be established for this context?

Thank you!

Publication:

Simones L., Schroeder F. & Rodger M. (2013). Categorisations of

Physical Gesture in Piano Teaching: A preliminary enquiry.

(forthcoming).

LSIMONES01@QUB.AC.UK

References:Bakeman, R. & Gottman, J. (1986). Observing Interaction: An Introduction to Sequential Analysis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Cohen, J. (1960). A coefficient of agreement for nominal scales. Educational and Psychological measurements, 20, 37-46.

Cook, S.; Mitchell, Z. & Goldin-Meadow, S. (2008). Gesturing makes learning last. Cognition, 106, 1047-1058

de Fornel, M. (1992). The return gesture: some remarks on context, inference, and iconic gesture. In P. Auer & A. Di Luzio (Eds.), The contextualization of Language (pp. 159-176). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

Du Bois, J. (2001). Towards a dialogic syntax. Unpublished manuscript.

Goldin-Meadow, S. (2003). Hearing gesture, how our hands help us think. Harvard: Harvard University Press

McNeill, D. (1992). Hand and Mind. Chicago: University Press.

McNeill, D. (2005). Gesture and Thought, Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Mondada, L. (2006). Participants’ online analysis and multimodal practices: projecting the end of the turn and the closing of the sequence. Discourse Studies (8), 117-129.

Muller, C. (2008). What gestures reveal about the nature of metaphor. In A. Cienki & C. Muller (Eds.), Metaphor and gesture (pp.219-245) Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

Pickering, M. & Garrod, S. (2004). Towards a mechanist psychology of dialogue. Behaviour and Brain Sciences, 27, 169-190).

Sacks, H., Schegloff, E. & Jefferson, G. (1974). A simplest systematics for the organization of turn-taking for conversation. Language, 50, 696-735.

Zlatev, J., Racine, T., Sinha, C. & Itkonen, E. (2008). Intersubjectivity: what makes us human? In J. Zlatev, T. Racine, C. Sinha & E. Itkonen (Eds.) The shared mind: perspectives on intersubjectivity (pp. 1-14). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

Gestures developed by the three teachers combined

Gesture Occurrences

Less experienced students

OccurrencesMore

experienced students

Ratio (Less exp/more exp.)

(95% CI) 

P-value  

Deictic 374 305 0.82 (0.70, 0.95)

0.008

Metaphoric 46 215 4.67 (3.40, 6.43)

<0.001

Iconic 95 193 2.03 (1.59, 2.60)

<0.001

Co-verbal beats

92 191 2.08 (1.62, 2.66)

<0.001

Musical beats

52 51 0.98 (0.667, 1.44)

0.92

Conducting style

2 26 13.0 (3.09, 54.8)

<0.001

Playing piano

230 206 0.90 (0.74, 1.08)

0.25

Mimic 155 52 3.33 (0.25, 0.46)

<0.001

Touch 124 9 0.07 (0.04, 0.14)

<0.001

Gestures developed per teacherGestures Occurrence

sLess

experienced

OccurrencesMore

experienced

Ratio Less/More experienced95% CI

P - value

TEACHERS TEACHERS TEACHERS TEACHERS

T1 T2 T3 T1 T2 T3 T1 T2 T3 T1 T2 T3

Deictic 169 98 107

125

90 90 0.74

0.92

0.84

0.01 0.56 0.23

Iconic 22 42 31 100

64 29 4.55

1.53

0.94

<0.001

0.03 0.80

Metaphoric 14 29 3 90 80 45 6.43

2.76

15.0

<0.001

<0.001 <0.001

Co-verbal Beats

25 52 15 51 100

40 2.04

1.92

2.67

0.003 <0.001 <0.001

Musical Beats

42 5 0 28 1 22 0.67

0.20

4.40

0.10 0.14 0.003

Conducting Style

0 2 0 18 4 4 * 2.00

* * 0.42 *

Playing Piano

43 71 116

63 56 87 1.47

0.79

0.75

0.05 0.18 0.04

Mimics 19 12 124

16 19 17 0.84

1.58

0.14

0.61 0.21 <0.001

Touch 15 109

0 2 7 0 0.13

0.06

* 0.007 <0.001 *

Gestures developed by the three teachers combined

Gestures Less Experienced Students(freq./ %)

More Experienced Students(freq./%)

Spontaneous Co-verbal(McNeill 1995; 2005)

607 (25%) 904 (37%)

Spontaneous Co-Musical(Simones, Schroeder & Rodger 2013)

563 (23%) 344 (15%)

Total 1170 (48%) 1248 (52%)

Grand total: 2418

62%

38%

RESULTS II. Gestures developed per teacher: Spontaneous co-verbal gestures (McNeill, 1992; 2005) • DEICTIC

• METAPHORIC

• ICONIC

• CO-VERBAL

BEATST3

T2

T1

T3

T2

T1

T3

T2

T1

T3

T2

T1 More expe-rienced stu-dentsLess expe-rienced studentsp<0.0

01

p<0.001

p<0.03

p<0.003p<0.001

p:0.01

II. Gestures developed per teacher: Spontaneous co-musical (Simones, Schroeder, Rodger 2013)

MUSICAL BEATS

CONDUCTING

STYLE

PLAYING PIANO

MIMICS

TOUCH T3

T2

T1

T3

T2

T1

T3

T2

T1

T3

T2

T1

T3

T2

T1

0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140

More expe-rienced stu-dentsLess expe-rienced students

P: 0.003

P: 0.05

p: 0.04

P: <0.00

1

P: <0.00

1P: 0.007