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Learning new languages

Some participants of my research were given some basic verbs that are usually learned when a person is first acquiring a new language. I asked students from Germany, Korea and India to show and say the verbs: cook, sleep, forget, measure and other basic expressions. That experiment made me realize that motion could really work as a tool for learning a language. However, for a better learning purpose it would be useful to zoom in even closer to capture facial expressions and upper body gestures. Some languages and sounds are very hard to hear and even harder to repeat. Improvisation enhances seeing, seeing enhances learning. That batch of recordings turned out to be fascinating on another level. I discovered that students from different countries used the same gesture to express certain verbs. For example, each student leaned her head on her folded hands to express the word: sleep. It would be revealing to research even more gestures in order to discover universal patterns of body language.