Over three lessons, particular words used in maths was investigated using brainstorming techniques, starting with what the students in Year 2 and 3 already knew. The students brought some operational words alive by discussing their meanings. This generated a debate about specific language used in mathematics – for example, ‘divide’ could be replaced with ‘shared equally’ and ‘sum’ could represent ‘add’ and ‘how many more’. At this stage, teachers deliberately did not discuss alternative meanings (use in everyday English) with students in order to let the conversation happen organically and authentically. They did, however, ask further questions to clarify some of the student responses, such as ‘… tell me more about this’. This allowed students to often debate and come to mutual understandings of the terms, after perhaps only thinking about one meaning initially. By looking closely at the four mathematical operations, we could define, classify and communicate procedures with effective language.
The students were able to explore the meaning behind words and then form further understanding. They made mini charts to represent their own thinking and used phrases to enhance their understanding of the terms. These charts were displayed around the classroom, and further group discussions occurred to gain meaning within context.
Teachers found that, at this stage it was good to summarise word meaning and explicitly teach new maths words. This gave students different exposures to build upon their own ideas and understandings regarding maths language. Understanding how the mathematical specific words relate to both subject specific communication and everyday use was important. Students worked through defining understanding and specific relevance from a mathematical perspective, along with comprehending and unpacking meaning of these specific words across all other areas of the curriculum.
After the word investigation, there was a student-led discussion about the ideas and concepts raised in the investigation. Rather than just focus on the Mathematics (through a regular maths lesson), explicitly teaching subject specific vocabulary through a student investigation and discussing their ideas helped them to develop meaning behind it and provided context to help scaffold their learning.