“Hush it up!”: Silence as a Pedagogical Resource in a Language Immersion Mathematics Classroom

Abstract

Frequently, the silence of students whose first language is not the language of instruction is interpreted as indicative of lack of knowledge or language proficiency. I propose an alternative interpretation, illustrating how both teacher and student silence can be a pedagogical resource that respects students’ sense-making, honors the multimodal nature of mathematical activity, and follows principles from research on second language learning. I draw on an example from a geometry task in a third-grade Spanish immersion classroom and invite readers to consider how teachers and students can use silence as a pedagogical resource in their bilingual contexts.