Deictics and the construction of mathematics and science knowledge in the secondary school classroom

Abstract

Taking a Teacher Language Awareness (TLA) perspective, this paper examines how the concept of deixis is employed in oral discourse in two secondary science and mathematics classes in the southwestern part of the US. Drawing on audio and videotaped data from two classrooms, we examine how verbal deixis, or words and phrases that cannot be fully understood without additional context, serves as a potential resource for the organisation of learning processes. We further consider how deixis may act as an impediment to the organisation of learning processes. We outline implications for preparation of teachers of English Language Learners in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics areas, with a specific focus on middle and high school science and mathematics.

Keywords:

• Co-construction of meaning
• deixis
• repair sequences
• STEM education

Notes

1. Five types of deixis are spatial, person, temporal, social and discourse (Levinson 1983).

2. http://www.onpar.us/sample_items.html.

3. In larger urban school districts, newcomer schools draw recent immigrant students from a wide range of backgrounds together. The curriculum is taught in a sheltered manner, in which teachers prepare lessons with an understanding of students’ developing English language abilities. In newcomer schools, all students are ELLs (many with refugee or asylum status) and teachers are trained in cultural sensitivity, as well as ESL methods in addition to their content.

4. All names are pseudonyms.

5. This teacher gesture of cupping the hand to ear has previously been described by Sert (2015) and Mortensen (2016).