Conscious Gestures
| Gesture | Meaning |
| Hand up | Shows you want to answer a question or make a point |
| Handshake | Sign of respect |
| Nod | Suggests agreement and understanding (UH) |
| Shrug | Expresses a lack of knowledge and concern (UH) |
| High five | Sign of shared celebration |
| Facepalm | Indicates embarrassment or frustration |
| Poking, tapping or jabbing | Use to get the attention of the person poked or to tease them (UH) |
| Pointing | Draws the audience’s attention to something (UH) |
| Eye-rolling | Expresses negative emotions, such as boredom, contempt and exasperation (UH) |
(UH) – gestures which can be unconscious and overused out of habit.
The general rule to follow with gestures is that any gesture that enhances or clarifies what you are saying is good. Ones which do not add anything to your speaking, but are not obsessive or distracting, are neutral. Finally, gestures which distract and annoy your audience are bad.
Content
Having thought about how you speak, articulation, and how you use body language, you now need to consider what you are speaking, meaning the content of your assessment. We have already looked at how to structure it, the order to put points in and the techniques to use. However, there are other items which you can add to the content of your work. The following may be used, if the task and your teacher allow it: