Abstract
This work studies mathematics word problems’ use in a classroom of recent immigrants, or newcomers, to a United States public elementary school. I study how word problems foster the recontextualization of mathematical concepts in a lived reality experienced by newcomer students in their new cultural and educational setting. In this study’s setting language plays a significant role in the process of meaning-making. I describe how language use in word problems remains intertwined with mathematics instruction. This opens a space for questioning word problems’ purpose and role in multilingual classrooms, and I highlight how the creative process of co-constructing problems’ meaning in this context can expand notions of genre applied to word problems. Throughout I adopt a theorization of translanguaging as a language practice and apply it in problem discussion. This helps probe how language use impacts students’ ways of understanding and utilizing mathematical concepts.
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Notes
The term Students with Limited or Interrupted Formal Education (SLIFE) also has currency in this context (Center for Applied Linguistics, 2022). Here I have used the term newcomer in accordance with the school system where this study took place.
Throughout this paper multilingual refers to places where, and people whose relationships and experiences with, two or more languages and ways of conveying ideas interact, encompassing complex “historicities, relationships, practices, and identities” (Lee, 2023, p.84).
Here and in the sequel, numerals (e.g. 16) rather than written words (e.g. sixteen) appear in problems given to the students in written form. In all reporting of dialog, unless otherwise specified, numerals appear as shorthand for the actual words pronounced: students actually said words like sixteen or dieciséis, but I write 16 to help readers follow the mathematical argument.
The English uses a simple present run (which does not connote a true present-time action, but rather a general truth or gnomic statement) flanked by instances of are (which can be present-time or gnomic). Given this was the initial session with Juno, it seemed appropriate to provide a more colloquial rendition in Spanish. In the moment, I chose a paratactic style, where each successive sentence envisages a new now as if scenes in a movie, even though the morphological tenses do not align strictly with those of the original English.
I interpreted the result as due to a mechanical, rather than conceptual, error. From context, it appeared clear to me in the moment that Juno would not suppose adding 20 to 16 would give an answer over 100. She showed good number sense, and the missteps in the calculation appeared notational.
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Acknowledgements
This research was supported by the National Science Foundation (DRL-2055419), but the opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect the position, policy, or endorsement of the funding agency. I thank Ms. Ulysses and all the students who participated in this study, for without them, this work would not have been possible.
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Krause, G.H. Worlds and words: entangling mathematics, language, and context in newcomer classrooms. ZDM Mathematics Education 55, 1139–1150 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11858-023-01516-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11858-023-01516-0