Language And Communication In Elementary Mathematics Teaching

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he beginning of this course, the author was advised that teaching mathematics would be the most rewarding (and thus easiest course) because there is only one correct answer, and it’s easier for kids to teach because they know when they get it right. Durkin and Shire (1991), however, list and categorise lexical ambiguities that can blur definitions and shake acceptance of the mathematical register, not to mention cause difficulties for the teacher of primary school students only beginning their journey into mathematics. Their four sets comprise::
¨ Homonymy, whereby words of the same form have different meanings (such as bow, bank, leaves);
¨ Polysemy, where a word may have two or more similar meanings (such as the openings in either a river or ones face suggested by the word mouth);
¨ Homophony, for distinct words with the same pronunciation (like two/to/too or boar/bore); and
¨ Shifts of Application, where a word will convey the same sense but with different perspectives (such as ‘home’ which could be interchangeable with house to one person, but mean something different to a unit-dweller.)

Lexical ambiguity includes the way a word changes meanings. In western mathematics it is accepted that number words can mean an abstract and a definite. As Gibbs & Orton (1994) point out, talking about ten oranges is different to talking about ten. At a country school, one child was delighted tell this author (perhaps unwittingly) about his cultural perspective of the meaning of numbers. He breathlessly told how he had just moved into town from a cattle station. His new house had a street number. “Does your house have a number?”

Added opportunities for loss of understanding appear also from the sloppiness with which speakers of a live language treat the mathematical vocabulary (Gibbs & Orton, 1994). Teachers must also strive to provide access to all students within their diverse societies (Orey, 1998).

The language of ma...