Code-Switching Explorations in Teaching Early Number Sense

Gabriela Arias De Sanchez,Miles Turnbull,Ann Anderson,Martha Gabriel

doi:10.3390/educsci8010038

Gabriela Arias De Sanchez, Miles Turnbull + Show 2 more

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https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci8010038

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Abstract

New semiotic perspectives about the role of language in mathematics education indicate that teachers have a fundamental role in communicating and teaching the language that carries mathematical meaning. However, little is known about how educators of young children understand and use the language of mathematics. This study addresses this void. Supported by the understanding that mathematics has its own language (Pimm, 1987), the study focuses on code switching—the mixing of words from two languages—by educators as they shift between the language of instruction and the language of mathematics. A qualitative multiple case study approach utilizing discourse analysis was used to explore three early years teachers’ math talk. Findings indicate that these educators code-switched to the mathematics register when they talked about numbers, number words and counting, to revoice students’ ideas, to explain students’ and teachers’ actions, to provide new math information, and when they chose between two terms that belonged to the math register. Findings also demonstrated that educators preferred to avoid the use of the mathematics’ register and relied instead on what the educators called “familiar language.” Findings further indicated the presence of semantic patterns between perceptual terms and the mathematics register.

Highlights

During the last decade, a new understanding of the important role that language plays in the teaching and learning of mathematics has emerged [1,2,3]
We have organized the findings under three main headings: (1) Educators’ understandings and views about language in mathematics teaching; (2) Code switching between the language of instruction and the mathematics’ register; and (3) Language choices
Neither the process, nor the language created to convey those particular meanings, should be underestimated, or labeled as informal during the early years of mathematics education. These educators’ avoidance of the mathematics register revealed the existence of a particular early years mathematical discourse, favoring what was perceived as familiar words over formal terminology and the analyses showed how teachers consistently used these terms as valuable pedagogical tools

Summary

Introduction

A new understanding of the important role that language plays in the teaching and learning of mathematics has emerged [1,2,3] From this emerging perspective, language is considered not as a way to teach mathematics, but as a means to construct mathematical meaning. Little is known about how educators of young children understand and use the language of mathematics. Addressing this gap and investigating how much and why educators switch between the language of instruction and the language of mathematics is the main purpose of this study. The study focuses on code switching—the mixing of words from two languages [4,5,6,7]—by educators as they shift between the language of instruction and the language of mathematics

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