Western Norway University of Applied Sciences

General principles of harnessing students’ multiple languages as resources in the mathematics classroom

Introduction: Language as a resource for mathematics learning

Many students learn mathematics in a language other than the one they speak at home. Research shows that students can greatly benefit from their home languages being activated in mathematics classes. This text provides a short introduction to the principles of multi-languages responsive teaching.

Language awareness

Through the mathematics tasks developed in the project ML2, we want to direct students' attention to differences and similarities in linguistic expressions across languages and use these to shed light on mathematical concepts from different perspectives. Students need language awareness to contribute with relevant examples from home languages. This text gives some examples of how teachers can support students to gain this.

Adapting tasks

All tasks need to be adjusted to fit the specific needs of students in a class. Therefore, there is a need to discuss some principles for adapting tasks as well as some challenges. The main points in this discussion come from Sullivan et al’s (2015) five dilemmas of task design. The dilemmas were: context; language; structure; distribution; and levels of interaction.

Description of materials

Deepening fraction concepts with „Fractions and decimals“

Many students prefer to use percentages or decimal forms of fractions instead of ones with numerators and denominators. To strengthen students' understanding about numerators and denominators, the teaching material on fractions and decimals utilises linguistic diversity as a starting point to reflect on the meaning communicated through the different forms of representation. Moreover, the task gives students the opportunity to systematically switch between verbal descriptions, representations using circles and bars, and more informal representations through drawings or objects from everyday life that can be linked to fractions.

Exploring patterns in pre-algebra in „Tables and chairs“

In this task, students are expected to interpret and determine rules for patterns using everyday language, rather than algebraic symbols. Having students use symbols without a clear understanding about what the symbols represent can hinder their understandings. To support students to gain the expected mathematical insights from a task, teachers will utilise different aspects of their professional expertise, especially when asking students to use multiple languages. The table and chair task requires teacher to utilise most of the jobs, pedagogical tools, categories for perceiving and thinking and orientations, to support students to gain the learning goals. Therefore, the task is accompanied by notes for teachers and also notes for professional development facilitators.

Supporting students to distinguish “Area and Perimeter”

The teaching material on area and perimeter engages students in reflections on how the concept of perimeter is used in everyday Norwegian and what differences there are compared to its use in mathematics. Then, the students will become familiar with the corresponding mathematical words in several other languages and their literal translations into Norwegian. Through this, the students will deepen their understanding of the concepts as a measure of the length of the line around a figure and a measure of how much space there is inside a figure.

Deepening students conceptual understanding of “Even and Odd Numbers”

For many students, the words „even“ and „odd“ are labels, attached to number examples, with no inherent or useful meaning attached to them. The goal of the material “Even and Odd Numbers” material is to help students explore these concepts by comparing and contrasting them with how they are described in other languages, so that students gain a richer understanding of what the two concepts mean and how they can be used in solving different types of problems.

Video 1 The role of mother-tongue teachers (Norwegian only)

In this short video, two mother tongue teachers introduce themselves and describe their roles in working in Norwegian classrooms. This includes differences between working in mainstream classrooms and working in receptions classes.

Video 2 Using and developing languages in Norwegian mathematics lessons (Norwegian only)

In this short video, two mother-tongue teachers discuss how they work with developing children’s languages (both their home languages and the language of instruction, Norwegian) when working with mathematics.