Preservice Teachers’ Mathematical Visual Implementation for Emergent Bilinguals

Using visuals is a well-known strategy to teach emergent bilinguals (EBs). This study examined how preservice teachers (PSTs) implemented visuals to help EBs understand mathematical problems and how an innovative intervention cultivated PSTs’ capability of using visuals for EBs. Four middle school mathematics PSTs were engaged in a field experience with EBs to work on mathematical problems; during the field experience, the PSTs received interventions. In one intervention session, the PSTs were asked to make sense of a word problem written in an unknown language with different visuals. After this intervention, they changed their use of visuals when modifying tasks for EBs. The results suggest that immersive experiences where PSTs can experience learning from the perspective of EBs helps PSTs implement mathematically meaningful visuals in a way that makes mathematical problems accessible to EBs.

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