Initiating a project for language-and-learner responsiveness in mathematics content teaching

Abstract

Although our community has come to know that language is an important resource for mathematics teaching and learning, there is a less fine-grained understanding of how developmental work with mathematics teachers can be designed to support content teacher talk that is language-and-learner responsive. In this report, we first discuss our theoretical framework with the tools of naming and lexicalization, interpreted as uses in classroom teacher talk of content-related word names and explanatory sentences with the potential to reduce specific learning difficulties. We then change the emphasis to explore challenges of thinking a version of the framework and tools for work with mathematics teachers in order to inform their decisions as to how and why selected names and/into explanations can be particularly responsive in content teaching.