American Sign Language (ASL) is a popular language of study for post-secondary students. For many of these students, the classroom is the only face-to-face contact they have with the language, fluent signers, and the signing community. Current teaching approaches instruct students in the widely accepted signs documented in dictionaries, but in real-world social settings signers also draw on meaningful gestures. Consequently, students may encounter sign language outside of the classroom that is different from the prescribed uses demonstrated and practiced in class. In this qualitative study, classroom research is combined with an exploratory research design and a mixed-methods approach to quantitizing data. Gesture is positioned as a key part of the early learning process for beginner, hearing adult university ASL students. The study was informed by theories of