Learner Agency and Academic Discourse in a Sheltered-Immersion Mathematics Class

Abstract

Students and teachers alike commonly view mathematics as an objective discipline to be learned through rote memorization. This view of the field is rooted in a traditional ideology of classroom roles in which any question has exactly one answer and the teacher is positioned as the ultimate authority. The case for reform has been made to deepen students’ engagement with mathematics content, but this chapter identifies another justification: to provide opportunities for second-language learners to be socialized to academic discourse. I analyze video-recordings of a middle school mathematics class for English learners in which the teacher knows mathematics and language pedagogy, integrates language and content instruction, and incorporates accepted best practices for teaching English through mathematics, such as explicitly teaching technical vocabulary and “unpacking” word problems. Considering how these techniques are instantiated through talk-in-interaction, however, this study shows that students are given a limited degree of semiotic agency over meaning-making resources such as classroom discourse; even when students evaluate one another’s work, their evaluations become tools for reinforcing teacher authority. Socializing students to academic language requires changes in ideology, not simply technique; only by decentering their own authority will teachers make space for students to appropriate complex mathematics discourse structures.