“Explícame tu Respuesta”: Supporting the Development of Mathematical Discourse in Emergent Bilingual Kindergarten Students

Abstract

This study investigated Spanish-speaking kindergarten students' participation in mathematical discourse as they solved and discussed a range of word problems. Specifically, we draw upon sociocultural perspectives on mathematics learning to frame mathematical discourse and to examine specific teacher and student actions that seemed to support the development of mathematical discourse over the course of the kindergarten year. Data sources included pre- and post-task-based clinical interview assessments and weekly (videotaped) observations of problem-solving lessons. Findings demonstrated ways that teachers supported and students appropriated discursive habits such as using more precise mathematical language, explaining solutions in ways that referenced actions on quantities in the problem, and using multiple visual representations to mediate communication. In addition, the findings point to the critical role the teacher plays in supporting the development of students' mathematical discourse.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This research was supported by the National Science Foundation, under grant ESI-0424983, awarded to CEMELA (The Center for the Mathematics Education of Latino/as). The views expressed here are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the funding agency.

We would like to thank other members of our research team, in particular Richard Kitchen, Edgar Romero, and Havens Levitt for their help in conducting pre- and post-assessment interviews and classroom observations. We are especially grateful to Mary Marshall and Alan Tennison who provided professional development and helped with data collection. Without their help this Kindergarten Study would not have been possible. We also want to thank Mrs. Arenas and her students for welcoming us into their classroom and sharing their knowledge with us.

Notes

¹We draw from the work of García and Kleifgen (2010) to capitalize on students' linguistic and cultural backgrounds as resources and view students as capable of acquiring English and maintaining their native language as they engage in challenging mathematical tasks.

Both authors contributed equally to this manuscript.

²The Pre-LAS is a measure of students' proficiency in Spanish and English as well as preliteracy skills from 5 to 7 years of age.

³All student responses were in Spanish. Any examples provided in English are translations.

⁴Although students' explanations were limited at the beginning of the year, they demonstrated an impressive capacity to reason about and solve word problems, which we describe in greater detail in other reports (see Turner et al., 2008, 2009; Turner & Celedón-Pattichis, 2011)

⁵“Int” refers to the interviewer. “G” refers to Gerardo.

⁶It is difficult to translate informal Spanish to informal English without violating certain cultural emphases and meanings.

⁷Ms. Arenas often referred to students as mis amorcitos (“my little loved ones”).

⁸English and Spanish versions of the pre-/post-assessment items were created by Spanish speakers of the research team. We started off with readily available items from CGI, then multiple members from the research team modified items to keep consistency with the language used and the type of problem.