Building Language Development and Math Competence
with 4th and 5th Grade English Learners Through the Use of Math Conferences
Kira Walker, Brockton Elementary

In 2004, Kira Walker had been teaching English learners at Brockton Elementary school in Los Angeles for many years. She was not just comfortable, but highly skilled at teaching language arts using writers' workshop, writing conferences, and other literacy strategies. Walker decided to work on teaching mathematics to English learners by applying some of the same literacy strategies.

She used the "Algebra Project" by Harlem-born and Harvard-educated Civil Rights leader, Dr. Robert P. Moses, as a jumping-off point for her 5th-grade inquiry project in experiential mathematics and math conferencing.

The following description of Walker’s classroom inquiry includes excerpts (italicized) from her written reflection of the experience, titled “The Forgotten Art of Student/Teacher Conferences.”

I always begin my readers' or writers' workshops with a ten minute mini-lesson followed by 20 minutes of independent reading or writing. During that independent work time, I pull students aside for our student/teacher conferences. Afterwards, we sit in a circle on the rug for a whole group share as students share their work and receive critical feedback for revisions or thought. The workshop ends with peer conferences or partner reading as students share their work for more feedback. I have watched students develop into independent thinkers, proficient in reading comprehension, writing, and critical thinking.

Walker wondered if the student-centered workshop format would also be effective for teaching math. She began to explore the idea of “Accountable Talk,” which is based on the notion that talking with others about ideas and work is fundamental to learning. But not all talk sustains learning or creates intelligence. For classroom talk to promote learning, it must seriously respond to and further develop what others in the group have said. It puts forth and demands knowledge that is accurate and relevant to the issue under discussion. Accountable talk uses evidence in ways appropriate to the discipline (for example, proofs in mathematics). Accountable talk sharpens students' thinking by reinforcing their abilities to use knowledge appropriately. As such, it helps develop the skills and habits of mind that constitute intelligence-in-practice.

I decided to try the accountable talk model in my class during math, and gave the students word problems from “The Problem Solver.” I chose four different word problems for the students to solve with a partner. They could then draw a picture or chart or diagram to show the class how they solved the problem. All the students came up with unique and interesting ways to solve their problems. We did this for a few weeks, and I used mini-lessons to teach strategies and language the students needed to share back with the class. We learned about working backwards, drawing a diagram, creating a chart, drawing a picture, and guess and check, but there was still something missing. During the whole group discussion, the students were attentive, but not active. I found little to respond to, and few opportunities to revise or rethink a problem.  The students seemed disconnected from their problems.

Walker surmised that the problems may not have been personally meaningful to the students, and tried other strategies, including “menu math,” (Frank Shaffer Publications), which the students connected to immediately. Although her teaching was effective, Walker continued to feel that there was something missing.

Then it dawned on me. I didn’t know my students when it came to math. I had never taken the time to sit down and talk to them about math like I do in the readers' and writers' workshops. Teacher/student conferences work well in those workshops because students choose the material, and they are invested in it. I decided to try math conferences.

I sat down with Ana to begin our initial math conference. I wanted to find out what connections she had to math, either at home or from past experiences in school. Ana is a level four English Learner, an excellent student, and has qualified for GATE.  Her math scoring is in the 90th percentile, but she loves reading most, and we had had very effective reading conferences. There, she always offered insight into her thinking. And yet, when I asked Ana to tell me about math, she was clearly stumped.

Other than understanding that math was important in school, and is hard, Ana was unable to make any personal connections to math. Walker held conferences with all of her focal students but, just like Ana, most appeared to connect math only to school, without any further meaning.

I realized that students' only connections to math were for homework, grades or, later on, to get a job. In terms of literacy, I realized there were very few home-school connections to math. I was stuck, until a TLC coach handed me the book, “Radical Equations,” by Robert Moses. In his middle school algebra class, he took 8th graders on a subway trip and connected it to algebraic equations at every step. In this way, he made real world connections to algebra with his class.

This, then, became the focus of my project. For fractions, we surveyed and graphed the students who used the restroom between certain hours, tallied the traffic on a nearby boulevard, and centered pictures of our families in frames. We asked authentic questions and graphed results using pie charts, bar graphs, percentages and decimals. For geometry, we designed and built equipment for playgrounds and skate parks, built shapes out of paper, clay, toothpicks, and cardboard to measure perimeter, area, surface area, and volume.

The days were filled with meaningful activities, followed by lively discussion and the accountable talk was buzzing. It wasn’t until many of the students were stumped by an algebraic equation formed from a field trip to the library, however, that Walker got the insight into the types of student thinking and learning she had been seeking. She realized from her conversations with students that they knew what “X” represented, but were unclear on what all the other numbers represented in an equation.

I was amazed. I had spent so much time throughout algebra focusing on the meaning of X that I never thought to go back and find out from the students what the rest of the equation meant. For the first time, I had clarity in teaching algebra, and it was due to the student/teacher conferences.

At the end of this two-year long inquiry project, Walker felt as if she were still just beginning to understand how she could use math conferences to teach math to English learners and other students. She reflected,

In my final conferences with students, many of them were able to recall meaningful math activities we had tackled throughout the year. Whether or not the activities led to a higher understanding of math through real world connections, I don’t know. But it did create a community of math learners, where students were not intimidated to share their thinking with their peers, right or wrong. The most meaningful part of this endeavor was realizing that student/teacher conferences are an integral part of all learning. In speaking one-on-one with students, and looking at patterns, I uncovered a common misconception that students had in learning algebra. This informed my teaching, and I have a much deeper understanding of where communication may break down. In addition, the student/teacher conferences allowed me to assess my students in a way that standard whole group instruction never could. I plan to explore more effective ways to question students during math conferences, but this experience confirmed once again what I sometimes forget: the most important aspect of teaching is individualized instruction.