Ok, it is pretty unoriginal – but I really wanted to start blogging and did not have any creative energy left with all of the planning I have been doing for next year! I figure it will come to me one day and I can change it then.
Why it will do for now… When I teach math, I do not feel like I am teaching as much as I am translating. I take massive, confusing bunches of math-formation and develop ways to organize it for my students. I break it down into steps. I make it sound like English. I have been very successful with my brighter students. But then, what does that really mean? Aren’t we all successful with them? What I would like to do going forward is to be more successful with my less successful students. I really do want to speak math to them. But, most importantly, I want them to not only understand what I am saying, but be able to speak it as well! I am shooting for fluency this time around.
I Speak Math 
It reminds me a little of Dorrie saying “I speak whale!”
Looking forward to seeing what you have to say!
My first comment! Yeah!
i say it’s a pretty *good* title.
the “math is a language” trope
gets more work than it deserves
i think but this takes advantage
of the cliche and makes it personal.
effective translating of course demands
that we understand *both* the source
and the target language. to get students
“speaking math” involves a great deal of
listening to students speak. getting the
“less successful” to be comfortable enough
to speak (coherently) about math is
a tough nut to crack. good on ya
for wanting it and going for it.
Thanks so much for the encouragement! Wouldn’t it be great if we were able to speak math fluently with our students and they would understand what we were saying? So many times lessons are slowed down or altered bc my students are not even familiar with the terminology. To be able to converse back and forth with them? That would be the icing on the cake!