One more way to leverage the power of gesture: we can pay closer attention to the manner in which others move their hands. As we’ve discovered, people’s newest and most advanced ideas often show up first in their gestures; moreover, individuals signal their readiness to learn when their gestures begin to diverge from their speech. In our single-minded focus on spoken language, however, we may miss the clues conveyed in this other mode. Research finds that even experienced teachers pick up on less than a third of the information contained in students’ hand movements. But studies also
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