Home > News & Views > Talking Namba -the role of language in making maths meaningful

Talking Namba -the role of language in making maths meaningful

On October 19th John Bradbury will present ‘Talking Namba: the role of language in making maths meaningful’. This webinar, which is free for ATESOL NT members, is for all those EAL/D teachers in remote community schools…who are also teaching Maths!
 
To register please click HERE
 
Synopsis
All students have some difficulty moving from counting to more efficient means of calculating. For EALD students, especially those for whom mathematics is not a culturally embedded practice, this shift can be a step too far. This is because it involves a sneaky switch between mathematical metaphors. Students who do not make this switch are not only stuck with inefficient ways of adding and subtracting but will find it very difficult to understand multiplication and, by extension, place value.

During this session John will examine these metaphors and show how they impact language and understanding. Using either carefully selected English terms or the students’ L1, participants will explore how the use of language can help students access more powerful ways of conceptualising number and calculation.

John Bradbury has spent 20 years working with remote Indigenous schools across the Northern Territory including 14 years of school-based leadership positions and 6 years as a mathematics consultant with the Department of Education. He coordinated the production of Talking Namba, a mathematics teaching resource for Indigenous schools and is currently close to completing a PhD thesis on collaborative work based at Shepherdson College (Galiwin’ku) concerning the delivery of mathematics programs by Yolŋu educators in the students’ first language. 

Members