Using a transdisciplinary framework to examine mathematics classroom talk taking place in and through a second language

Abstract

This paper proposes a transdisciplinary framework to allow for a multifocal exploration of classroom talk practices. It draws on data from a broader study of talk in South African Grade 4 mathematics classrooms where the language of teaching and learning (English) was the home language for neither the teachers nor their students. Lesson transcript data from one teacher's lessons on fractions are used to demonstrate how working with three strands of conceptual insight from the disciplines of psychology, sociology and linguistics conduces to a potentially richer understanding of a teacher's use of classroom talk in mediating her students' mathematical understanding. By drawing on elements of Vygotsky's sociocultural psychology, we make visible in the lesson data the ways in which this teacher used the 'everyday' in trying to navigate her students' towards more 'scientific' conceptualizations of unit fractions. By then taking up aspects of Bernstein's sociological work, we articulate, and make visible, how societal circumstances impinge on students' access to exploratory mathematical discourse needed for epistemological access to abstract and generalized mathematical concepts. Finally, through Halliday's work on the power of particular linguistic registers for meaning-making, we highlight challenges in learning mathematics in and through a second language and reveal the constraints placed on students' opportunity to maximally exploit the distinct forms of meaning contained within the mathematics register.

Eleven Grade 1 teachers’ understandings of mathematical language in a South African context

“…In spite of this, the majority of South African learners study mathematics in English, as this is the dominant language that the learners' parents 'buy into' as the medium of teaching (Robertson & Graven 2020). Consequently, there are many learners in South African schools who are not proficient in the LoLT, which is often English (Dale 2015;Robertson 2017;Robertson & Graven 2018).…”

What is mathematics teaching talk for? A response based on three sites of practice in mathematics education

“…Our second step was to move from that early time through a swathe of studies where these tensions were discussed by others in research that assumed and concluded that the focused study of mathematics teaching talk is important (e.g., Barwell & Pimm, 2016;Morgan et al, 2021;Robertson & Graven, 2018;Sherin, 2002;Turner et al, 2019). Confirming these tensions as a continuing feature in current teaching practices, Turner et al (2019) addressed language understandings and teaching in classrooms and pointed to tensions faced by teachers when wanting to draw attention to mathematical language and, at the same time, being concerned with interrupting the learners' reasoning, and hence seeing their mathematical talk as an obstacle to learners' participation in mathematics.…”

Wiskunde-ondersteuning vir isiXhosasprekende leerders in die grondslagfase

“…Verder het Graven se studie (2016) ondersoek ingestel na die versterking van ingesteldheid teenoor die leer van wiskunde deur "wiskundeklubs" 3 met 'n fokus op graad 3 en 4 Robertson en Graven (2018). het kommunikasie in 'n graad 4-wiskundeklaskamer ondersoek wat in en deur 'n tweede taal plaasvind.…”