This week, I read "Equity and the Quality of the Language Used in Mathematics Education" by Schutte and Kaiser. In this article, the authors focus on the role that language plays in a German mathematics classroom, focusing in particular on students' whose native tongue is not German. The authors claim that nearly a third of students in German schools have migrated from other countries. PISA results claim that "youths whose vernacular used in the parents' homes is not coherent with the language used during lessons achieve lower competency scores in all domains" of the test (p. 238). By analysing a short episode of teaching "least common multiples," the authors note that subtleties in language are often swept under the rug, leaving students (whose first language is not German) to grapple with the meaning of the "academic language," as well as symbolic notation.
This piece struck a particular chord with me, since I have been teaching international students for the last two years. The majority of my students are from China, and thus spend the majority of their time speaking to their fellow classmates in Chinese. If national representation were more diverse, this would perhaps not be the case. I often wonder what sort of effect that language has on their learning. As an instructor, I try my best to write everything on the board so that if anything is missed verbally, it's at least written on the board. Even still, when working with the formal definition of a limit and using the words "arbitrarily" and "sufficiently," these words (initially) have no meaning to the students outside of the context of the definition. Thankfully, the Vantage program includes courses through the LLED department that focus on the language in their mathematics courses! Although I don't know exactly what happens in these classes, it does seem as though they address the "academic language" the authors in this article were so concerned with.
Unfortunately, this all exists in a program that exists for students who all need intensive English preparation, whereas the authors of this article are concerned with a typical elementary or secondary classroom. They assert that the goal should be to create classrooms that emphasize language regardless of the number of languages spoken. This is certainly a novel goal, but what actions can mathematics educators take to do so?
