EDUCATIONAL PROCESSES IN EARLY ALGEBRA TO PROMOTE A LINGUISTIC APPROACH TO IT: BEHAVIOURS, AND AWARENESS EMERGED IN TEACHERS

In this paper we trace the changes of perspective occurred in algebra teaching, sketching the recent trends and discussing the increasingly more complex role played by the teacher. We introduce our Project (ArAl) both as corpus of studies for a linguistic and socio-constructive approach to early algebra and as an integrated system of teachers’ education. We present the project methodology and introduce the multi-commented classroom transcripts (MT), seen as a useful tool to promote teachers’ ability to orchestrate early algebra discussions and to critically observe their own actions in the classroom. We report an MT excerpt and we analyse the related comments highlighting behaviours and awareness emerged in the teacher. We conclude with some remarks about the value of our methodology and about the conditions which determine its efficacy.