Integrating language and content: Issues from the mathematics classroom

Research into the teaching and learning of language and content in mainstream classrooms research tends to treat content as a fixed body of knowledge to be (re)constructed by learners. There is little research which seeks to understand how language and the curriculum are constructed and related in interaction by learners. In this paper, I report analysis of data from a recent study into the participation of students learning English as an additional language (EAL) in mainstream mathematics classrooms in the UK. As part of the study, pairs of students were asked to write and solve mathematical word problems together, an activity taken from their mathematics lessons. Analysis of students' interaction based on ideas from discursive psychology reveals how students' learning encompasses both mathematics and language learning, in the context, however, of significant identity and relationship work. Further analysis explores how these discursive practices relate to the kind of mathematics and language the students learn. Based on this analysis, I argue that there is a need for a more explicitly reflexive model of the relationship between content, language and learning.