Multimodal language strategies activated by students in understanding and communicating Mathematics

In these years many language-based theories are being extensively employed to analyze students’ and teachers’ mathematical behaviours. In this framework, starting from a long term classroom and research experience, we claim that when students are allowed to freely choice their own linguistic tools for specific goals (e.g. to understand or to communicate), the functions of different language components considerably vary and their effectiveness increase, with a particular role always played by figural component. Our claim is supported by the analysis of a protocol on an emblematic classroom activity, according to which we structure our teaching strategies at all levels. Finally, starting from our analysis of the observed cognitive behaviours of our students, we give arguments about the necessity of refining and enlarging the theoretical setting