Language is deeply involved in learning mathematics as students both communicate and think about mathematical ideas. Because of this, teachers of English learners have particular challenges to overcome. Mathematical Thinking and Communication addresses perhaps the most significant challenge: providing access to mathematics for these students.
For all students—and English learners in particular—access means finding effective, authentic ways to make language clear and thinking visible so they can reason more, speak more, and write more in mathematics. Based on extensive research and collaboration with teachers, coaches, and schools, Mark Driscoll, Johannah Nikula, and Jill Neumayer DePiper outline four principles for designing instruction that creates this kind of access: challenging tasks, multimodal representations, development of mathematical communication, and repeated structured practice.