Translanguaging to Persevere: Supporting and Recognizing the Meaning-Making Process for Latinx Bilingual Students of Mathematics

Abstract

This paper describes the translanguaging and perseverance practices of Latinx bilingual students and the careful preparation of their English-speaking, monolingual teacher to establish a supportive classroom environment. Drawing on the constructs of translanguaging mathematical practice and perseverance in problem-solving, we share our observations of a group of four Latinx bilingual students as they leverage their bilingualism to productively struggle to make sense of an exponential function. We discuss this vignette to reveal the pedagogical decisions that helped support these students to dialogically leverage their communicative resources to help persevere with in-the-moment mathematical obstacles. Such decisions included selecting and enacting a challenging mathematical task conducive for perseverance, encouraging a linguistically sensitive learning environment, and providing access to mathematical tools as learning resources.