English Learners in K–12 Mathematics Education: A Review of the Literature

Abstract

Alongside the increased presence of students classified as English learners (ELs) in mathematics classrooms exists a persistent pattern of the marginalization of ELs. Educators have sought research to identify how to provide ELs with high-quality mathematics education. Over the past two decades, education researchers have responded with increased attention to issues related to the teaching and learning of mathematics with ELs. In this review we analyzed literature published between 2000 and 2015 on mathematics teaching and learning with K-12 ELs. We identified 75 peer-reviewed, empirical studies related to the teaching and learning of mathematics with ELs in Grades K-12 and categorized the studies by focus (Learning, Teaching, and Teacher Education). We synthesize the results of these studies through the lens of a sociocultural perspective on language in mathematics. We then discuss avenues for future research and calls to action based on the extant body of literature.

A Systematic Review of Teacher–Child Interactions With Multilingual Young Children

“…Furthermore, almost all participants in the included studies had low language skill levels in the majority language. As was shown in a previous review on the mathematics education of primary school multilingual children (De Araujo, Roberts, Willey, & Zahner, 2018), most studies on multilingualism take a deficit perspective when studying multilingual children, assuming that these children have a delay. It should be noted that this limits the generalizability of the present study, as the included studies only cover a small part of the multilingual population.…”

English Learners in STEM Subjects: Contemporary Views on STEM Subjects and Language With English Learners

“…Conducting a review of the research literature on ELs in each of the STEM subjects is a demanding task and has been done for mathematics education (de Araujo et al, 2018) and for science education (Lee, 2005). Conducting a review of literature on ELs across STEM subjects is a more demanding task because it requires a cross-disciplinary approach that transcends the traditional disciplinary siloes.…”

An examination of monolingual preservice teachers’ set-up of cognitively demanding mathematics tasks with emergent multilingual students

“…Researchers have examined different aspects of teachers' instructional practice in order to learn how to support the mathematical learning of EBs (de Araujo et al, 2018) including providing linguistic support (Echevarria, Vogt, & Short, 2010), applying nonverbal activities (Ahn et al, 2015;Fernandes, 2012;Morales, Khisty, & Chval, 2003), utilizing visuals with mathematical information (I & Stanford, 2018) and integrating students' culture and previous experiences (Aguirre et al, 2013;Lipka, Sharp, Adams, & Sharp, 2007). Campbell et al (2007) proposed a model specific to the use of problem solving with EBs.…”

“…In this study, we examined the strategies two White, monolingual preservice teachers (PSTs) enacted with rigorous mathematics tasks for EBs in the U.S. This focus on PSTs is important; a recent review of the literature on the teaching and learning of mathematics with EBs noted the dearth of literature regarding the preparation of PSTs to teach EBs (de Araujo, Roberts, Willey, & Zahner, 2018). Moreover, we focused on PSTs because teacher preparation courses do not tend to include adequate integration of issues pertaining to EBs (Meskill, 2005) and over 30 states in the U.S. did not yet require EB-relevant training for general classroom teachers beyond federal requirements, which state that school districts must provide research-based professional development to any teachers, administrators, and staff who work with ELLs (Education Commission of the State, 2014).…”