Effective teachers shape mathematical language by modelling appropriate terms and communicating their meaning in ways that students understand.
Effective teachers foster students’ use and understanding of the terminology that is endorsed by the wider mathematical community. They do this by making links between mathematical language, students’ intuitive understandings, and the home language. Concepts and technical terms need to be explained and modelled in ways that make sense to students yet are true to the underlying meaning. By carefully distinguishing between terms, teachers make students aware of the variations and subtleties to be found in mathematical language.
Students learn the meaning of mathematical language through explicit “telling” and through modelling. Sometimes, they can be helped to grasp the meaning of a concept through the use of words or symbols that have the same mathematical meaning, for example, “x”, “multiply”, and “times”. Particular care is needed when using words such as “less than”, “more”, “maybe”, and “half ”, which can have somewhat different meanings in the home. In the following transcript, a teacher holds up two cereal packets, one large and one
small, and asks students to describe the difference between them in mathematical terms.
For example this conversation between a teacher ( T ) and student ( R ) as follows:
T: Would you say that those two are different shapes?
R: They’re similar.
T: What does similar mean?
R: Same shape, different sizes.
T: Same shape but different sizes. That’s going around in circles isn’t it?—We still don’t know what you mean by shape. What do you mean by shape?
[She gathers three objects: the two cereal packets and the meter ruler. She places the ruler alongside the small cereal packet.]
T: This and this are different shapes, but they’re both cuboids.
[She now puts the cereal packets side by side.]
T: This and this are the same shape and different sizes. What makes them the same shape?
[One girl refers to a scaled-down version. Another to measuring the sides—to see if they’re in the same ratio. Claire picks up their words and emphasizes them.
T: Right. So it’s about ratio and about scale.
The teacher should model and use specialized mathematical language in ways that let students grasp it easily. Terms such as “absolute value”, “standard deviation”, and “very likely” typically do not have equivalents in the language a child uses at home. Where the medium of instruction is different from the home language, children can encounter considerable difficulties with prepositions, word order, logical structures, and conditionals—and the unfamiliar contexts in which problems are situated. Teachers of mathematics are often
unaware of the barriers to understanding that students from a different language and culture must overcome. Language (or code) switching, in which the teacher substitutes a home language word, phrase, or sentence for a mathematical concept, can be a useful strategy for helping students grasp underlying meaning.
Effective teachers foster students’ use and understanding of the terminology that is endorsed by the wider mathematical community. They do this by making links between mathematical language, students’ intuitive understandings, and the home language. Concepts and technical terms need to be explained and modelled in ways that make sense to students yet are true to the underlying meaning. By carefully distinguishing between terms, teachers make students aware of the variations and subtleties to be found in mathematical language.
Students learn the meaning of mathematical language through explicit “telling” and through modelling. Sometimes, they can be helped to grasp the meaning of a concept through the use of words or symbols that have the same mathematical meaning, for example, “x”, “multiply”, and “times”. Particular care is needed when using words such as “less than”, “more”, “maybe”, and “half ”, which can have somewhat different meanings in the home. In the following transcript, a teacher holds up two cereal packets, one large and one
small, and asks students to describe the difference between them in mathematical terms.
For example this conversation between a teacher ( T ) and student ( R ) as follows:
T: Would you say that those two are different shapes?
R: They’re similar.
T: What does similar mean?
R: Same shape, different sizes.
T: Same shape but different sizes. That’s going around in circles isn’t it?—We still don’t know what you mean by shape. What do you mean by shape?
[She gathers three objects: the two cereal packets and the meter ruler. She places the ruler alongside the small cereal packet.]
T: This and this are different shapes, but they’re both cuboids.
[She now puts the cereal packets side by side.]
T: This and this are the same shape and different sizes. What makes them the same shape?
[One girl refers to a scaled-down version. Another to measuring the sides—to see if they’re in the same ratio. Claire picks up their words and emphasizes them.
T: Right. So it’s about ratio and about scale.
The teacher should model and use specialized mathematical language in ways that let students grasp it easily. Terms such as “absolute value”, “standard deviation”, and “very likely” typically do not have equivalents in the language a child uses at home. Where the medium of instruction is different from the home language, children can encounter considerable difficulties with prepositions, word order, logical structures, and conditionals—and the unfamiliar contexts in which problems are situated. Teachers of mathematics are often
unaware of the barriers to understanding that students from a different language and culture must overcome. Language (or code) switching, in which the teacher substitutes a home language word, phrase, or sentence for a mathematical concept, can be a useful strategy for helping students grasp underlying meaning.
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