The migrant movements throughout the world and the politics around language diversity in
many countries have promoted an increasing presence of multilingualism in the
mathematics classrooms. There are students who face the challenge of learning
mathematics in a language that is not their home language. To further understand the joint
learning of mathematics and language, we need to reflect on the processes that the
students develop when solving mathematical tasks, and to analyze how they see their
involvement in such processes.
The main focus of this PhD study is on the language and mathematical practices by
Spanish and English bilingual students in California, United States. In this context, the
current policy of “English only” does not facilitate the use of the students' languages in the
classroom, except for the case of those who are English dominant. Our assumption is that
obstacles to the use of the students' languages may become obstacles to the learning of
mathematics.
The PhD study attempts to examine diverse resolutions of mathematical tasks by bilingual
students who are in the process of learning the language of instruction. We also consider
the perspectives from these bilingual students on the use of their two languages in the
resolution of the tasks. To achieve these goals, individual questionnaires with four
mathematical activities were issued to students of a middle and a high school.
Complementary task-based interviews with students were videotaped and audio recorded.
Several findings have been obtained as regards to connections between the language use
and the mathematical practice. It has been documented, for instance, that the students
report the use of their two languages for either the oral register or the written one.
Moreover, the analysis of the visual mode in the statements of the tasks is particularly
interesting as it informs of the attribution of mathematical meanings. On the other hand,
the students in the sample do not say to experience the combined use of their languages
as a difficulty or an obstacle. Many of them do not even report the use of English when
they indeed do it while writing short comments. This leads to one of the major
conclusions: the phenomenon of invisibility that frames the students' experience of their
language use during their involvement in individual mathematical practices.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:TDX_UAB/oai:www.tdx.cat:10803/117475 |
| Date | 17 December 2012 |
| Creators | Reverter Sabaté, Francesc |
| Contributors | Planas, Núria (Planas i Raig), Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Departament de Didàctica de la Matemàtica i de les Ciències Experimentals |
| Publisher | Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona |
| Source Sets | Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | info:eu-repo/semantics/doctoralThesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion |
| Format | 656 p., application/pdf |
| Source | TDX (Tesis Doctorals en Xarxa) |
| Rights | ADVERTIMENT. L'accés als continguts d'aquesta tesi queda condicionat a l'acceptació de les condicions d'ús establertes per la següent llicència Creative Commons: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/es/, info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
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