The American educational landscape is changing rapidly, and so are the students in American mathematics classrooms. In the New York City public schools, one of every four students is an English language learner (ELL) (New York City Department of Education 2014). Mathematics teachers find themselves teaching either in a classroom that contains all…

To create a classroom learning community in which all students are engaged and inspired, a mathematics teacher's mastery of the content must be matched by an awareness of the needs of individual students and an understanding of the instructional strategies that will enable all learners to develop their mathematical knowledge and skills. Yet when…

Mathematics is considered the universal language, but students who speak languages other than English have difficulty doing mathematics in English. For instance, because of a lack of familiarity with the problem's context, many have trouble understanding exactly what operations to perform. In the United States, approximately one in seven students…