Mathematics and Foreign Language: Authentic Texts in Mathematics

Within mathematics education research, various authors have described mathematics as a language and emphasized the importance of educators developing students' ability to communicate mathematically. In this paper, we discuss how foreign language education methods and research can inform mathematics education. We give a definition of mathematical communicative competence and provide a framework for developing this competence through the use of authentic mathematics texts, which we also define. We describe potential benefits of authentic texts and provide example activities using authentic texts.