Résumé
Gestures are ubiquitous in teacher actions. Among those, deictics in foreign language classes are the most produced types of gesture. And yet, to date, no study specifically dedicated to pointing gestures in educational setting seems to have been carried out. Our study aims to examine and discuss the production of a teacher’s pointing while teaching French as a first and a foreign language. The analysis of almost 600 pointing gestures allows us to offer some particular insight on this specific topic. Fourteen different pointing gestures have been distinguished. It has been shown that the form of the hand may be motivated by an economy of movement, whereby the hand shapes may be influenced by the one of the preceding gesture. In parallel, there has been consistency between the forms and the teacher’s intentions. Of particular interest to the understanding of the use of pointing gestures in this context was the analysis of the ones performed in two-handed gestures where the hands move in different patterns.