What is it about?
This paper examines how and why teachers choose particular mathematics tasks for English learners.
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Why is it important?
The study's findings show that teachers' beliefs about English learners are reflected in the tasks they select. Because those beliefs tend to reflect deficit views of English learners, the mathematics teachers provide English learners tends to focus on low level skills practice rather than rich problem solving. Therefore, we must critically examine our beliefs and challenge deficit views in order to improve the mathematics education of English learners.
Perspectives
It is important to know that teachers are trying to help English learners in seemingly intuitive ways; however, these seemingly common sense approaches are actually diminishing English learners' access to high-quality mathematics. Language and mathematics are connected. We can't expect to strip away all the language from mathematics to support English learners because this also changes the type of mathematics in which they engage. I hope this article helps readers to focus on the need for further care and exploration of how mathematics teachers can provide access to high-quality mathematics for English learners.
Zandra de Araujo
University of Missouri System
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Connections between secondary mathematics teachers’ beliefs and their selection of tasks for English language learners, Curriculum Inquiry, August 2017, Taylor & Francis,
DOI: 10.1080/03626784.2017.1368351.
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