Promising Pedagogical Practices for Emergent Bilinguals in Kindergarten: Towards a Mathematics Discourse Community

In the current U.S. context, it is relevant to disseminate research that portrays in detail how bilingual teachers create challenging and safe mathematics learning environments for emergent bilinguals. It is critical to identify pedagogical approaches that foster emergent bilinguals’ participation in mathematics conversations and discourse practices where language is considered a pedagogical resource. This is possible when teachers understand that young Latino/a students come to school with a wide range of cognitive and linguistic tools, which they can use to help them make sense of problems posed in the classroom. Using case study methodology, we define and provide a detailed portrayal of a bilingual kindergarten teacher´s mathematics pedagogical practices. Specifically we discuss: (a) the use of authentic mathematics stories, (b) the integration of multimodal representation of problem solving, and (c) collective thinking and representation of problem solving solutions. In addition, we analyze how the teacher fosters practices that use language as a learning resource. Finally, we argue that these practices promote a mathematics discourse community and that pedagogy of confidence, care, and understanding is at the core of this teacher’s instructional approach