At its heart, mathematics is all about communication; mathematicians explore, hypothesise, reason and think creatively. As Dr Tony Wing says, ‘as children learn to communicate mathematically, they learn to think mathematically’.
Oracy in maths is a key focus for Oxford University Press, and we have partnered with oracy charity, Voice 21 to explore and research this discipline. Together and in consultation with schools, students, academies and hubs, we have developed the Talk for Maths Benchmarks, which give teachers tangible tips on how to develop spoken maths skills in the classroom.
Here are five tips to get started based on this work:
Plan frequent exploratory talk
Purposeful, rich talk tasks are designed to help students explore an idea collaboratively.
Encourage exploratory talk or ‘messy talk’ among your pupils. Douglas Barnes describes this as ‘hesitant and incomplete because it enables the speaker to try out ideas, hear how they sound (…) arrange information and ideas into different patterns’.
Establish with pupils that thinking is ‘internal dialogue’ and an important step in making sense of what we see and hear. Emphasise that exploratory talk may be uncertain and hesitant as we ‘try out’ this ‘internal dialogue’ in a paired or group talk.
Use manipulatives as a tool for talk
Manipulatives and pictorial representations support pupils to organise their thinking and structure their talk, providing a bridge from the concrete to the abstract.
For teachers, they offer a window into a pupil’s thinking: they can reveal what children know and provide a teacher with extremely valuable insights into their understanding.
Planned, purposeful use of carefully selected manipulatives reveals mathematical structures and patterns. The tactile nature of structured manipulatives is inclusive and facilitates discussion, opening up opportunities for all pupils to engage in rich talk to deepen understanding.
Connect classroom talk with being a mathematician
Talk encourages creativity and curiosity – core skills of a mathematician.
As well as helping to refine one’s own thinking, talk facilitates collaborative exploration. Encourage pupils by using verbs associated with exploration and reasoning, e.g. ‘think creatively’, ‘wonder’, ‘explore’ and ‘hypothesise’.
Praise the process of collaboration, e.g. ‘I can hear that you are building on each other’s thinking’; highlight that this is where mathematics happens and how we learn. When verbalising their thinking, pupils’ metacognition develops; they become more attuned to their own thought processes and reasoning strategies, leading to increased self-regulation and more successful problem solving.
Teach vocabulary explicitly
Establishing a school-wide maths vocabulary progression and approach to planning ensures vocabulary is a cross-phase priority.
Develop and embed shared language across the school for both staff and pupils. Create a progression of mathematical vocabulary by identifying the word knowledge required to understand and talk about mathematical concepts at each phase of the maths curriculum. Resources are available to help with this, including from Oxford University Press.
In addition to mathematical terminology, consider the transferable words pupils need for interpreting and discussing mathematical problems, such as ‘order’, ‘compare’ or ‘investigate’.
The success of such a vocabulary progression map relies on staff consensus and consistency, so consider developing the document as a whole staff or as a working group with representatives from each phase.
Harness uncertainty to develop understanding
Share uncertain thinking, communicate misconceptions and use them to deepen understanding and refine thinking.
Developing understanding and refining answers can become a collaborative process through rich classroom talk. Discussing uncertainty and mistakes can be framed as celebrating the opportunity to learn and work together.
Through collective thinking, maths is understood as a process of learning rather than just giving a correct answer. Pupils come to appreciate how understanding can emerge from uncertainty as much as (if not more than) from initial successes.
Access the full Talk for Maths Benchmarks and accompanying classroom footage here
Your thoughts