Designing Learning Environments to Promote Academic Literacy in Mathematics in Multilingual Secondary Mathematics Classrooms

Emerging multilingual students can develop the dimensions of Academic Literacy in Mathematics (ALM) in classroom discussions. But, there is a need for empirically-validated principles for fostering such discussions. This research used ALM as a framework to create a unit of instruction on linear rates of change for ninth grade mathematics in which multilingual students benefit from discussions. Project-specific design principles are presented along with qualitative analysis of classroom discussions from each phase of the project. The results illustrate how discussions in the redesigned lessons contributed to developing the interrelated dimensions of ALM among multilingual learners. The work concludes with a discussion of how the project-specific design principles can serve as a framework for fostering discussions in other multilingual secondary mathematics learning environments.

Zahner, W., Calleros, E. D., & Pelaez, K. (2021). Designing learning environments to promote academic literacy in mathematics in multilingual secondary mathematics classrooms. ZDM - Mathematics Education, 53(2), 359-373. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11858-021-01239-0