Deepening Elementary Teacher Expertise to Engage English Learners in Linguistic Practices for Mathematics

• In Event: 42.058 - Developing Linguistically Responsive Standards-Based Reform for English Learners

Abstract

In many states, elementary teachers have been working to integrate new mathematics standards with new English language development standards. We present emerging findings from the first year of a three-year professional development project centered on deepening teacher expertise to teach mathematics to English learners. Six teachers participated in professional development and instructional coaching centered on a model of teacher expertise that emphasized the interconnections between knowledge, reflection, and practice (Shulman, 1995; Walqui, 2008). This multi-faceted professional learning program centers on simultaneously developing conceptual, analytic, and linguistic practices by providing ELs with rich structured opportunities to interact around key disciplinary concepts.

Our inquiry centered on how teachers approached the role of language in the teaching of challenging mathematics to English learners in mainstream classes. In terms of a language focus, teachers engaged with a framework that articulated three distinct uses for language: language to complete a particular task, language to develop deeper understanding of a mathematical concept, and language to engage in a disciplinary practice. We coded coaching notes over three cycles across the three focal domains of expertise and different uses of language. The instructional coaching cycles consisted of planning, classroom observation, and debriefing in which teachers reflected on language and instruction in order to make adjustments for future practice. We considered the focus of classroom practice and individual learning trajectories of teachers in sustaining a focus on language in the planning and implementation of lessons for students.

Our emerging findings indicate some of the challenges and dilemmas that teachers face as well as potential strategies to accelerate growth. A majority of teachers focused on uses of language that assisted students to complete specific classroom-based interactive tasks. While these conventionally may be considered academic uses of language, we consider whether or not they actually are just in the pedagogical register. We analyze other cases where teachers design opportunities for students to explore analogies between the syntax of everyday language with that of algebraic notation as well as opportunities for students to engage in the generative mathematical practice of problem solving with explicit attention to language. We assess the opportunities for further growth over the next two years of this project as we consider how to address the silence that instruction thus far has maintained toward students' native languages. We consider the tensions that arise when students are ethnically and linguistically diverse, but almost all teachers are monolingual speakers of English.

Author

• Andrew Haiwen Chu, WestEd