The Development of Two High School Students’ Discourses on Geometric Translation in Relation to the Teacher’s Discourse in the Classroom

Abstract

Research exploring student development on geometric translation in relation to classroom teaching is scarce. We used a qualitative case study design and examined two students’ development of thinking on translation in relation to the teacher’s discourse in a Turkish high school classroom through a discursive framework. We examined the teacher’s discourse through the video-taped classroom session in which he talked about translation. We examined the students’ discursive development through three video-taped task-based interviews. Finally, we compared the students’ discourses on translation with the teacher’s discourse. The teacher’s discourse on translation in the classroom was formal and based on an algebraic realization of the concept as an addition and a geometric transformation. The students adopted particular discursive elements used by the teacher right after instruction but later abandoned some of those and used their more established realizations of translation. The findings revealed the complexity of discursive development as the students continually and actively adjusted their discourses by taking into account the teacher’s discourse while also making it compatible with their own realizations of translation. We conclude that socio-cultural and discursive approaches have the potential to shed additional light on issues regarding learning and teaching of geometric translation.