ABSTRACT:

Exponents of Kinesics (Cooks and Goldin-Meadow 2006) have applauded the importance ofgesture in communication, especially in teaching English as a global language. This workthereforeassesses the effect ofgesture on teachingEnglishparts ofspeech tofirst year students ofMicheal Okpara University ofAgriculture, Umudike, Nigeria. One hundred and fifty students tookpart in this study. Thesestudents were dividedinto twogroups (the control and the experimental). Thecontrolgroup (N=75) were taught English parts ofspeech withoutgestures while the experimentalgroup (N=75) were taught same with accompanying gestures and pictures. Multiple choice questions containing the covered scheme were administered to the two groups. Data were analyzed usingfrequency distribution table. Results show that gestures and their reproduction significantly influenced the performances of the second group (which recorded pass rate of 60% as against 44% by subjects in the control group). The finding is corroborates Moreno & Mayer (2000)who argued that multimodal learning can be efficient because it conveys both auditory and visual information.