Ok, this is long, but I wanted to share a little about what it means to live and breathe being a teacher of diverse learners. In the past few years, I have been involved with a few studies from local universities. These studies have focused on many different types of things, but this particular one was what happens in a class with linguistically diverse learners (what I am getting master's in). A researcher came into my class and videotaped me for about a month, with follow-up interviews after each lesson. This is an article that she wrote for her doctoral thesis work. Hope you find some time to read it, and that you enjoy it!
(I am Mrs. Gelding if you didn't figure that out:). She decided to use a pseudonym for me.)
Using Communication to Develop Mathematics and Language: One Teacher’s Strategies
(I am taking the author's name out because this isn't published yet)
Iowa State University
Abstract
All students deserve to have access to high quality mathematics instruction. English language learners (ELLs) face a dual challenge in learning mathematics— they are learning mathematics and the English language simultaneously. This paper provides one teacher’s strategies for supporting ELLs in her classroom to provide them access to mathematics instruction. These strategies focus on developing mathematics and language skills through communication. To facilitate the development of these skills, teachers can provide a safe learning environment, as well as reading, writing, and speaking supports for students.
Introduction
Schools in the United States have an increasing percentage of students who are English language learners (ELLs). Between 1994-95 and 2004-05, the number of ELLs grew nationwide to 10% of the population (Payán & Nettles, 2008). In many states the growth of the number of ELLs increased at least 100%, with some states having larger increases, including a 714% increase in South Carolina and a 408% percent increase in Indiana (Payán & Nettles, 2008). Supporting ELLs in the mathematics classroom is particularly important, because math can hold the key to a student’s inclusion in our technological economy (Moses & Cobb, 2001). Instructing ELLs poses a unique classroom challenge, as mathematics teachers must support ELLs in learning academic content as well as learning a new language. Unfortunately, most teachers have little training in how to support ELLs in their classes (Echevarria, Short, & Powers, 2006). This paper offers strategies that mathematics teachers can use in their classrooms to support ELLs in developing language and mathematics competency.
The strategies in this paper come from my observations of and conversations with a sixth grade math teacher in a metropolitan area in the Western United States, Mrs. Nichole Gelding. Mrs. Gelding is a certified bilingual teacher who teaches a variety of classes, including a sheltered math class that provides language supports for beginning ELLs while they learn mathematics. Mrs. Gelding is an important resource for fellow teachers, staff, and administrators by providing guidelines and ideas for supporting their ELL students in their classrooms and the school as a whole.
Mrs. Gelding has made it a personal goal to support ELLs in mathematics and to provide all students with access to what she feels are rigorous math experiences. She shared:
I saw that I was bothered by my inability to reach ELLs. They just seemed to shut down. And, who wouldn’t? I mean, you’re in a new environment and everything you know, all the language is new and you can’t access anything in the book. So, I really tried to make it so they could break those walls down. And all kids could note, too, so this person has an accent or this person may not be able to say this word. You can still interact with them, and you can still figure out what they’re thinking.
Mrs. Gelding sees it as vitally important to have all students participating in her class, learning rich mathematics, and learning from each other. She understands where her students come from and wants to meet them where they are when they come into her classroom.
This article outlines strategies that Mrs. Gelding uses to address supporting her ELLs to develop both language and mathematics competency.
Language Matters, Especially in Math
Communication is a key component of mathematics classrooms. The National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) (2000) communication standard calls for students to
organize and consolidate their mathematical thinking through communication; communicate their mathematical thinking coherently and clearly to peers, teachers, and others; analyze and evaluate the mathematical thinking and strategies of others; and use the language of mathematics to express mathematics ideas precisely. (p. 59)
This focus on communication can be a means for ELLs to develop their language skills.
Language development is continually a focus for Mrs. Gelding as she works with her students to meet the NCTM (2000) communication standard. Students are expected to read, write, and discuss in her mathematics classroom. Mrs. Gelding uses her math class to develop students’ language proficiency through the students’ communication about and work on math. The following sections provide a description of the importance of knowing your students, what is needed to create a safe learning environment for students, and particular strategies to develop communication and language skills related to mathematics learning.
Know Your Students
ELLs come into their classes with vastly different academic and language experiences. Even though they are all English language learners, some will have had formal schooling experiences and others will have not. Some will come in with significant mathematics experiences in school, while others may have only informal mathematics experiences. A teacher’s support of her students will depend on what she knows about them. Not all ELLs speak the same languages or even dialects, so there is no simple solution such as knowing a particular language besides English to support them. Mrs. Gelding notes that while she had mostly Spanish-speaking students, she also had students from Nepal, Russia, Burma, Haiti, Somalia, Sudan, and more. She noted, “I know each of them have different language needs” and she would need to know those needs in order to support each student.
It can be difficult to know a student’s language abilities. However, teachers can solicit information from students and from school officials. They can ask students where they went to school last, what kind of math they have studied (perhaps by having them show a teacher some of the math that they have done), and how they feel about their English and math skills and/or abilities. This information, with a teacher’s classroom observations, can provide a starting point for thinking about who the students are and how to support ELLs in learning language, communication, and math in the classroom.
Create a Safe Learning Environment for Students
A key component of Mrs. Gelding’s class is that she wants kids to feel safe so that they feel comfortable communicating and learning about math. This safety is developed through work that she does with her students, work that students do with each other, and work that the students do with the mathematics. Mrs. Gelding shared:
I want kids to feel comfortable enough with me that they can tell me, ‘I don’t think I’m doing this right’ or ‘I don’t feel good about this.’ Then, the next step would be to have them feel that comfort with the people in their group, so that they know that if something happens in their group or if someone’s having a bad day or somebody’s being mean, that I’ll stick up for them and that it won’t be okay for that to happen.
A safe learning environment is facilitated through development of personal relationships with students but also social and conversation norms for working with classmates, particularly in groups.
There is an expectation that students in Mrs. Gelding’s class will consistently work collaboratively during math. All students have an obligation to share and to work with their group members to help each other develop an understanding of the mathematics. To create this environment, Mrs. Gelding continually tells students that they are all expected to engage, share, and participate. If a particular group has a member who is not talking and contributing, Mrs. Gelding goes back to the group to ask the student what she is thinking. This provides the group with an opportunity to hear what the student is thinking and for the teacher to see what she can do to support the student and the group, as well as to let all group members know that their contributions are valued. Mrs. Gelding is trying to reach all of the students in her class, to build up their confidence about math, and to get them excited about doing math. She wants all students to feel comfortable with math and know that they can tackle any problem if they just try strategies they know. Mrs. Gelding believes that it is important for all students to know that they can be successful in her math classroom.
Select and Develop Particular Vocabulary and Concepts
A key feature of language development for Mrs. Gelding is for her to be aware of both the language she is trying to develop and the language she will be using with students. Mrs. Gelding says that she has to carefully select words associated with particular concepts that precisely convey the intended meaning, understanding what she wants her students to learn from these words. Mrs. Gelding tries to have one or two focus vocabulary words for each unit that she wants her students to understand and be able to use by the end of the unit. For example, during a unit on operations with fractions, Mrs. Gelding focused on the word “represent”, because students were creating visual models of fraction operations. To develop these vocabulary concepts, she uses those words to explain the concept in multiple ways throughout the unit. Mrs. Gelding explained that when she goes to plan a lesson, she already knows these words and how they are used in the mathematics text.
Explain Problem Contexts
Simply having students focus on vocabulary, however, is not enough. Mrs. Gelding has found that most students need assistance in reading and comprehending mathematics content regardless of their ELL status. To support students, Mrs. Gelding focuses on having students understand the context of the problem and breaks the reading into more manageable pieces. Most problems that students solve using a text that is in line with the NCTM (2000) standards are text-heavy and include problem contexts. To help students understand the context of the problems that they work on, she does a lot of work around the language and scenarios in a problem. For instance, when Mrs. Gelding used a proportional reasoning problem asking about which recipe for containers of lemonade was stronger, to help students understand the problem context, she talked with students about how to make lemonade, what makes lemonade taste strong or weak, and what a recipe is,. In another problem involving multiplication and division of fractions that discussed splitting up blocks of cheese and brownies at a fair, she talked with her students about what a fair was and what constituted a block of cheese (and why they would need or use it at a fair). These class conversations about problem context provided access to the mathematics content in context-rich problems.
Chunk the Text and Problems
Once Mrs. Gelding feels that students understand the context of the problem, she has them work through the problem in their groups. Mrs. Gelding has found that when ELLs see half a page of text, which is common in many of today’s mathematics textbooks, they can oftentimes just shut down. To support her ELLs, she breaks up the reading and writing into more manageable chunks by retyping the investigation and splitting a document into three columns: one for the problem, one for a written answer, and one for an associated visual. In chunking the original text, Mrs. Gelding can ask the class, small groups, or individuals can stop and ask whether they understand. She can see with which specific parts a student is having difficulty.
Think it, Say it, Write it
A strategy that Mrs. Gelding uses to overlap with the aforementioned strategies involves more generally getting kids to communicate their mathematical ideas: “Think it, say it, write it.” Because students are continually asked to share their mathematical ideas, Mrs. Gelding tries to provide students the opportunity to truly develop their thoughts. The first step, Think it, allows students to think to themselves about their ideas related to the mathematics problem. Mrs. Gelding explained, “I wanted the English learners to feel safe and to feel that they could contribute to their group and that they could have an opinion and give them time and space to do that.” She always tries to give her students a chance to think on their own first, which allows them to organize and think through their options before talking with other students, sharing with the teacher, or sharing with the whole class.
The second phase, Say it, occurs during students’ conversations in their groups. Mrs. Gelding has created group norms for how students will participate in groups. For instance, she notes that it is okay if someone does not talk right away, but that student still has to share her opinion eventually. While the student listens to her group members, she has a bit more time to hear someone else share her idea and to think about how to frame and say her own ideas. Mrs. Gelding also encourages the students to ask someone to talk if she has been quiet so far. Doing this process allows students to worry less about getting the words just right on their papers at the beginning and gives kids a chance to think deeply about the mathematics in order to have a more developed justification for their thinking.
Listening to classmates also allows students to hear each other do math. Mrs. Gelding explains, “I want kids to hear how other people do math, and I don’t want to be a person who is the source of the answers…I want them to not just think that the only person in the room who has answers is the teacher.” Here the power lies with the students; they are aware that their ideas about mathematics count and are valued.
The final step of this process is Write it. Writing is part of every lesson that Mrs. Gelding does. Students have to be able to communicate their ideas on paper once they have thought about and talked about them with their group members. Because all students are required to have a mathematical reason in writing for most assignments, Mrs. Gelding often provides students with a sentence or paragraph frame. For instance, when students were trying to figure out which container of lemonade was stronger in the previously mentioned problem, Mrs. Gelding provided them with the following sentence frame: “I think container ____ is stronger, because ______________.” She asked students to create a strong “because clause.” Such a process can help students to sequence their ideas and help them reflect on their mathematical ideas and those of their peers. Mrs. Gelding explained, “I want kids to feel like that they can focus on the math part of it, and I can help them with the English part of it.” Helping students to communicate their mathematical ideas in a scaffolded way has allowed all of Mrs. Geldings’ students, including her ELLs, to share, develop, and polish their mathematical thinking. Students feel welcome to share their ideas and feel that their mathematical ideas matter and contribute to the class’ knowledge and understanding.
Conclusion
All students should receive rigorous mathematics instruction that develops their language, mathematics, and communication skills and abilities. The role of communication in the mathematics class is an important one. Through it, students learn about language and mathematics content by sharing, deconstructing, reconstructing, and building on their own and others’ ideas. Mrs. Gelding’s classroom provides examples of everyday practices that teachers can consider including in their own classrooms to reach their ELLs and other students. These are some beginning steps that we can take to support ELLs in mathematics classrooms.
Bibliography
Echevarria, Jana, Short, Deborah, & Powers, Kristin. “School reform and standards-based
education: A model for English-language learners.” The Journal of Educational Research
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