In this preliminary report, we propose a previously unidentified role that instructors’ gestures may play in helping students evaluate existing computer code. We find that instructors use gesture to animate processes encoded in the static inscriptions of computer programs in order to make invisible, dynamic phenomena perceptible to students. Our findings contribute to a better understanding of the embodied instructional work of teaching programming.

We present a detailed account of the interactional work between a programming instructor and a middle school student that leads to the resolution of an elusive error in the student’s code. By tracing the fine details of how this resolution came to be, we demonstrate how learning to debug in face-to-face interactions resembles a process of enskilment.