Using a transdisciplinary framework to examine mathematics classroom talk taking place in and through a second language

Graven, Mellony; Robertson, Sally-Ann

Title: Using a transdisciplinary framework to examine mathematics classroom talk taking place in and through a second language
Creator: Graven, Mellony
Creator: Robertson, Sally-Ann
Date Issued: 2009
Date: 2009
Type: text
Type: article
Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/69838
Identifier: vital:29586
Identifier: https://DOI: 10.1007/s11858-018-0952-2
Description: This paper proposes a transdisciplinary framework to allow for a multifocal exploration of classroom talk practices. It draws on data from a broader study of talk in South African Grade 4 mathematics classrooms where the language of teaching and learning (English) was the home language for neither the teachers nor their students. Lesson transcript data from one teacher’s lessons on fractions are used to demonstrate how working with three strands of conceptual insight from the disciplines of psychology, sociology and linguistics conduces to a potentially richer understanding of a teacher’s use of classroom talk in mediating her students’ mathematical understanding. By drawing on elements of Vygotsky’s sociocultural psychology, we make visible in the lesson data the ways in which this teacher used the ‘everyday’ in trying to navigate her students’ towards more ‘scientific’ conceptualizations of unit fractions. By then taking up aspects of Bernstein’s sociological work, we articulate, and make visible, how societal circumstances impinge on students’ access to exploratory mathematical discourse needed for epistemological access to abstract and generalized mathematical concepts. Finally, through Halliday’s work on the power of particular linguistic registers for meaning-making, we highlight challenges in learning mathematics in and through a second language and reveal the constraints placed on students’ opportunity to maximally exploit the distinct forms of meaning contained within the mathematics register.
Format: 14 pages
Format: pdf
Language: English
Relation: ZDM Mathematics Education
Relation: Robertson, S.A. and Graven, M., 2018. Using a transdisciplinary framework to examine mathematics classroom talk taking place in and through a second language. ZDM, pp.1-15.
Relation: ZDM Mathematics Education volume 50 number 6 1013 1027 November 2018 1863-9704
Rights: Graven,Mellony
Rights: Use of this resource is governed by the terms and conditions of the SpringerLink Terms of Use statement (https://link.springer.com/termsandconditions)

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Graven, Mellony (Prof)

Robertson, Sally-Ann (Mrs)

RU Department of Education

SDG 04. Quality Education

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