Addressing multi-language diversity in mathematics teacher education programs

Abstract

In this chapter, mathematics teacher educators (MTEs) from two different environments, namely South Africa (RSA) and the United States (US), join together to share our insights on the role that MTEs might play in the preparation mathematics teachers need in order to address language diversity in their mathematics classrooms. Although from two different contexts, we believe there are more similarities than differences in the issues and challenges MTEs face who must prepare and support teachers. Hence, we begin by raising awareness of some issues involved in helping students learn to read, write, speak, and listen to mathematics—a foreign language for most students, regardless of their English language proficiency. We then discuss issues related to orchestrating classroom discourse, with special attention to multilingual mathematics classrooms. We end by sharing strategies MTEs might use in preparing teachers to teach students from linguistically diverse backgrounds