Learning metaphors and classroom enactments: Understanding webs of association and their entailments for school mathematics

Abstract

Oriented by the observation that cross-cultural comparisons of mathematics teaching have had little impact on the evolution of classroom practice, we develop the thesis that approaches to school mathematics are rooted in metaphors and sustained by associations that are language specific. We examined distinct webs of meaning for the words “learn” and “teach” in three languages: English, Czech, and Japanese. By applying a tool designed for analyzing bodily classroom (inter)activity, we aim to demonstrate that the meanings of these words are evident in practices that are readily observed in video recordings of mathematics lessons conducted in these languages. We suggest that efforts toward “transcreation” rather than “translation” are better fitted to hopes of interpreting and informing classroom practices across languages.