Young children's appropriation of mathematical discourse : learning subtraction in a plurilingual classroom

Abstract

I describe a teaching experience I carried out in Malta with a class of 5-year-old children of different language groups. The language of instruction was English and the topic subtraction. I explicitly taught mathematical expressions and sentence fames and planned class and paired activities wherein the children themselves would use the language to express the concepts at hand. The theoretical framework underlying my interpretation of the children's efforts is leaming-as participation. More specifically, I used Krummheuer 's empirical model designed for interpreting classroom interaction in terms of producers and recipients. My teaching experience illustrates that with careful attention to both mathematics and language objectives, young learners in plurilingual Maltese classrooms can appropriate and use mathematics discourse within structured activities. However, more research is needed with regard to how students might use this language to author novel contributions.