MATHEMATICAL DISCOURSE ON TEACHER TALK AND

LEARNER TALK TO IMPROVE MATHEMATICS

COMUNICATION SKILL
Marina Rahmayanti
marinarahmayanti@gmail.com
State University of Makassar, Makassar

INTRODUCTION

In Curriculum and Evaluation Standards (NCTM, 1989: 6)

stated that one of the basic ability to think mathematics is
expected of students that communicate mathematics. Some
experts, such as Miriam et al (2000) suggested that mathematical
communication is not just express ideas through writing, but seem to be
more broadly, the ability of students and in terms of talking, explaining,
describing, listen, inquire and cooperate.

Teacher talk is a part of classroom interaction that also related with

the student lerning activity. By performing the appropriate teacher talk,
teacher can motivite student to be actively involved in the speaking
deskriptive. In reality now days, we often find that teachers only focus on
their knowledge but neglect the ways they interact (how teachers can
improve their teaching practice by investigating actual language use in
the classroom) to the students.

To enhance these capabilities, according to Janvier (1987: 27) is

by providing the widest opportunity for students to develop and integrate
communication skills through various external representation, such as
verbal descriptions, graphics, tables, or formula.

Such activity, in addition to his role as the language of mathematics,

as well at the same time emphasize mathematics as an activity (doing
mathematics) where in mathematics activity, not only focused on the final
solution but also on process which includes the process of translation as
interpretation, measurement, modeling and others.

The development of mathematical communication skills among

students, will not optimal if not facilitated with the support of learning.
Learning which meant "mathematical discourse". Through these learning
activities teachers allows observing the activities of students and see the
progress of students in ability to gather information, organize and
interpret information, as well as presenting and sharing information.
Kazemi (1998) states that "deeper conceptual understanding throught
discourse happends when students reason, comunicate, and reflect upon
the mathematics of explatory Reviews These tasks ". Therefore, it is
interesting to study the problems as research studies, namely:
Relationships learning mathematical discourse with improved
communication skills of mathematics in students. This study is deemed
beneficial to the improvement of communication capabilities
mathematics. Through this approach the student is expected to be more
active in learning and expressing ideas, each student can communicate
the problem in a way that is owned and understood.