How specific can language as resource become for the teaching of algebraic concepts?
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ORIGINAL PAPER
How specific can language as resource become for the teaching of algebraic concepts? Núria Planas1 Accepted: 19 September 2020 © The Author(s) 2020
Abstract Classroom research into mathematics and language has studied issues of context specificity such as cultures of explanation or the impact of language policies on practice. More recently, researchers in the domain have started to study issues of content specificity aimed at performing language-responsive mathematics teaching for the learning of precise mathematical content. Progress in the conceptualization of language as resource for mathematics teaching and learning makes it necessary to strengthen the discussion of the contexts of culture and interaction along with the linguistic demands given by the specificity of the mathematical content at play. In this paper, I introduce a sociocultural framing for a mathematical-linguistic view of grammar as resource with the focus on explicitness in communication. I then report developmental work with two teachers on their teaching of algebraic concepts, and address the question of how to learn to communicate explicit meanings for these concepts in classroom mathematical talk. The structuring principle adopted for this work was to critically distinguish and choose or produce instances of teacher talk that overtly communicated conceptual meaning within the algebra of equations. I conclude with preliminary evidence of the effectiveness of the work with the teachers. Keywords Mathematics teacher professional development · Classroom teacher talk · Explicitness in communication · Content specificity · Algebra of equations
1 Introduction We cannot address issues of communication in and for school mathematics teaching and learning in full without working for the understanding and improvement of classroom teacher talk. Mathematics teacher education research particularly needs more systematically to examine features of teacher talk with the potential of opening up the discussion and learning of specific mathematical content. So far, research on how to connect the language as resource orientation to the exploration and refinement of the language of the mathematics teacher in the classroom remains limited in terms of curricular content and educational levels. This is in part due to the prevalent focus, for some decades, on the languages of the diverse learners in this orientation in the field (Planas 2014, 2018). An increasing body of studies is reversing the current research gap with work on mathematics * Núria Planas [email protected] 1
Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Cerdanyola del Vallès, Spain
teaching that is based on findings from classroom research on mathematics and language (e.g., Adler and Ronda 2017; Moschkovich and Zahner 2018; Prediger and Zindel 2017). In complementary ways inspired by a diversity of theoretical-analytical frames, these pioneering studies share views of language as resource for mathematics teaching in classroom talk. The background and quantity of studies in this line o
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