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A Teacher’s Use of Revoicing in Mathematical Discussions

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Language and Communication in Mathematics Education

Part of the book series: ICME-13 Monographs ((ICME13Mo))

Abstract

This study explores how a teacher’s use of revoicing promotes students’ mathematical thinking and, more generally, mathematical learning opportunities. We analyzed four lessons where 12-year-old students solved geometry problems. We identified episodes that illustrate how the teacher’s actions supported students’ explanations during mathematical discussions. In this chapter we show two examples, from one of the lessons, where the teacher’s use of revoicing created spaces where students strengthened their understanding of the concept of distance between two points and its relation with the Pythagorean Theorem. Our theoretical approach to revoicing leads us to distinguish and examine three dimensions: linguistic, discursive and mathematical. The integrated view of such dimensions serves to find emergent relationships among talk, classroom discourse, and learning opportunities.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Adapted from http://nrich.maths.org/2365.

  2. 2.

    All names are pseudonyms.

  3. 3.

    In Fig. 2, the piece labeled “Wall Pictures” refers to a wall that had pictures hanging on the wall. The students’ three-dimensional models showed that.

  4. 4.

    The term “diagonal” is widely used in an informal way to refer to oblique segments in school mathematics.

  5. 5.

    In the usage of the word path (see Fig. 1) instead of the word distance, the teacher still explicitly refers to the property of being the shortest that is, in turn, the definition of distance.

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Acknowledgements

This investigation is developed in the context of the Programa de Doctorat en Educació de la Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, of which the first author is a student. We thank the school, the students and the teacher. Our funding comes from Project EDU2015-65378-P and Grants FPI BES-2013-063859 and EEBB-I-15-10216, Spain, and GIPEAM 2014 SGR 972, Catalonia.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Edifici G5, Campus de la UAB, 08193, Bellaterra, Cerdanyola del Vallès, Barcelona, Spain

    Kaouthar Boukafri & Núria Planas

  2. University of Arizona, Tucson, USA

    Marta Civil

Authors
  1. Kaouthar Boukafri
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  2. Marta Civil
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  3. Núria Planas
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Kaouthar Boukafri .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Education Department, University of California, Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz, California, USA

    Judit N. Moschkovich

  2. Faculty of Education, University of New Brunswick, Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada

    David Wagner

  3. Centre for Education Innovation and Action, Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Bombay, India

    Arindam Bose

  4. Faculty of Education, State University of Campinas, Campinas, São Paulo, Brazil

    Jackeline Rodrigues Mendes

  5. Institut für Erziehungswissenschaft, Technische Universität Dresden, Dresden, Germany

    Marcus Schütte

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Boukafri, K., Civil, M., Planas, N. (2018). A Teacher’s Use of Revoicing in Mathematical Discussions. In: Moschkovich, J., Wagner, D., Bose, A., Rodrigues Mendes, J., Schütte, M. (eds) Language and Communication in Mathematics Education. ICME-13 Monographs. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-75055-2_12

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-75055-2_12

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-75054-5

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-75055-2

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