Blog Post

Language & Literacy in Math

Language and literacy need not live in isolation.  Last year, teachers at my school worked on building academic conversations among our students.  We were excited to learn about how math presented many opportunities to do just that, and in the target language!  In this post, I will share some strategies for encouraging the target language in math through discussion and collaboration. Throughout, I’ll share how explicit attention to language and language supports set students up for success.

1) Create an environment of inquiry, reasoning, and discourse.

Teachers and I quickly realized that getting kids talking in math required lots of intentional practices on the part of the teacher, in planning and in the moment.   We began to look at our teacher talk moves and the role of questioning.  We also worked on using student thinking to move discussions forward.  We studied a Math Solutions article How to Get Students Talking! Generating Math Talk that Supports Math Learning. (LA de Garcia).  We also studied Oakland Unified School District has work: Engaging in Productive Struggle :Number Talks.

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2) Collaborative tasks, in all that we do!

As part of our school improvement work, our staff participated in a book study on Pauline Gibbons’ Scaffolding Language, Scaffolding Learning (2014). We found that many of the collaborative activities described in the book were perfect for math. One popular strategy was “give one to get one”, in which a student does his/her own thinking and then needs to share his/her thinking with 5 friends (signature required!). Another activity teachers liked were barrier games. Students get in partners and take turns trying to guess each other’s image. The student describing is not allowed to use some key terms listed on the image.

3) Teach compatible language, not just math-specific vocabulary.

In observing students share their strategies for solving math story problems, it became apparent that they needed the language for explaining their thinking process.  Cheryl Urow writes about this phenomenon in her article,  “¡Habla español, por favor!”: Using Math to Promote Use of the Non-English Language .   Urow writes that in addition to learning terms like “unidades”, “decenas”, and “centenas”, students needed the interactional language in order to engage in the math task. She modeled through a fishbowl, provided guided practice, and created supportive language frames. To make these visual aids most accessible, many teachers are moving towards table tents, placemats, or in-the-hand / in-the-notebook versions of the frames posted on chart paper.

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4) Contextualize the learning

I know we know this already….but keep reading anyway!  Teaching for Biliteracy proposes numerous ways for content to come alive. In math, a promising practice for students to comprehend the context of a story problem is through math theatre.  See Bringing Content and Language to Life Through Theater: Part II – Math . Another way to make math relevant and comprehensible is through the use of graphs.  In my math class, I begin with a survey of a hot topic, have students place their vote, and then pose an open ended question of “Que notas?” with some frames to support. The graph content can lend itself to articulating one’s stance with reasons, listening to classmates, and changing thinking. I snap a photo of each graph, slip on a sheet protector, and collect the artifacts in “Let’s Talk About It” books.

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5) Bridge vocabulary

Finally, let’s not forget the importance of teaching for transfer of math language.  This was particularly obvious to me at the dinner table last week when my third grader exclaimed  “3, 5, 7…I love impair numbers!”. My second grade daughter has also been prone to articulating a subtraction fact as “7 rest 4 equals 3”. While it’s great that language doesn’t interfere with their conceptual understanding,  there is little reason to not bridge math vocabulary along the way!  The below bridge chart is from another TfB blog post Sharing our biliteracy practices with others.  

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Math is inquiry, reasoning, and interacting. By creating opportunities for discourse, and providing language supports, teachers deepen student understanding and build language.  Math can be teaching for biliteracy and bilingualism, if we want it to be!

Comment (1)

  1. Pamela Brownie November 4, 2016 at 11:42 pm

    Incredibly powerful concrete things I will delightedly implement in my EL 4th grade classroom! Kudos are in first order and to a Badger as yet. Love Madison where I studied and returned time and time again, love Babcock, the Ratskeller, and your GREAT ideas. Can’t wait to start using them. Many thanks and enjoy some orange chocolate chip and a brat while you read this.!!! Just makin’ a few Brownie Points!!!

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