Critical Perspectives for Understanding Multilingual Children's Language Use in Mathematics Learning

• In Event: Critical Perspectives on Multilingual Interactions in Early Childhood Classrooms

Abstract

This study investigates how young children’s mathematics learning is connected to their linguistic repertoires, the experiences they have, and the emotions associated with their words and languages. To better understand these connections we consider the experiences of children using both Spanish and English to count in two kindergarten classrooms over three school years. We explore and interpret these experiences using Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) as our theoretical framework to analyze how words, particularly when used in more than one language, become meaningful in multiple ways as a result of context.

Authors

• Cristina Valencia Mazzanti, University of Georgia - Athens

• Lourdes Cardozo-Gaibisso, Mississippi State University