According to Stahl and Nagy (2007), "Language is a key component in the learning process. People's perceptions of the world are largely shaped by their vocabulary knowledge. Indeed, words are the tools we use to access our background knowledge, express ideas, and learn new concepts" (p. 4). When students develop a robust knowledge of mathematical vocabulary, they are able to more effectively draw upon their existing background knowledge, construct new mathematical meaning, comprehend complex mathematical problems, reason mathematically, and precisely communicate their thinking about math (Sammons, 2018).
Although the need for language supports—both content- and context-specific—for English language learners (ELLs) in math classes is increasingly evident to educators, it is also important for teachers to realize how much these semantic supports benefit many of their other students as well.
Students arrive in school with vast differences in their vocabulary knowledge. Research shows that children from some homes are exposed to five times as many words as others from homes that are less vocabulary-rich (Hart and Risley, 1995). To make matters even more difficult for some students, many mathematical terms are ones they rarely encounter outside school. Additionally, terms they believe they know may have very different mathematical meanings. For instance, compare the mathematical meanings of these terms to their everyday meanings: yard, foot, property, range, table, slope. Because so many students encounter substantial challenges when learning mathematical vocabulary, all teachers can support all students as mathematics language learners regardless of their level of English language proficiency (Thompson et al., 2008).
Let's look at a specific example of mathematical vocabulary support that can be used for ELL students: Talking Points cards (Sammons, 2013). Teachers create Talking Points cards for learners to use in whole-class lessons, small-group lessons, or independent math work station tasks. They offer scaffolding that strengthens students' understanding of mathematical vocabulary terms and also supports their efforts to converse mathematically with their peers. The cards often include relevant (but often unfamiliar) mathematical terms, nonlinguistic representations of those terms, examples and non-examples, and even suggested sentence starter stems to guide students in their initial efforts at math talk. Of course, just providing a Talking Points card has little effect unless students are taught how to use it appropriately and are aware that they are expected to use it as a learning resource.
Many teachers find that the same language supports they use for ELL students, such as Talking Points cards, are also of immense value to all their learners. Why limit their use to ELL students when so many other fledgling mathematicians have vocabulary deficits and are novices at mathematical conversations?
Rather than being another added-on responsibility for math teachers, in reality, the mathematical language supports for ELL students are effective instructional strategies for all mathematics language learners, whatever their English language proficiency, as they participate in discourse-centered mathematics.
