Examination of math language used by preschool teachers in mathematics education process

Preschool children make sense of mathematical concepts and skills through language. Therefore, how preschool teachers use language in mathematics activities is closely related to the development of mathematical meaning of children.Preschool teachers play an important role in mathematical concepts and skills acquisition of children.. Having a good knowledge of mathematical concepts and sufficient knowledge and skills about mathematics teaching, and using mathematical language being suitable the developmental characteristics of children by preschool teachers contribute to children's interest and curiosity towards mathematics, to learn mathematical concepts correctly and to develop mathematical skills. Therefore, it is of particular importance to reveal the methods and opinions related to the mathematical language used by preschool teachers in mathematics education process. In this study, which aims to examine the teachers' use of mathematics language, their experiences and methods in this subject, case study method which is one of the qualitative research designs was used. The study group was composed of four preschool teachers working in Eskişehir province. Diversification strategy was performed in the collection of data, and data were collected by using interview and observation techniques separately. Analysis of interview data was performed by phenomenographic method; Observation data were analyzed by descriptive analysis method. As a result of the research, it was found that teachers frequently included questions about evaluating pre-learning in mathematics activities, used language above levels of children in measurement and graphic concept activities, benefited from daily life in the concept of number and process activities, integrated activities with different types of activities and remained weak in the evaluation process. It was understood that the teachers were in general the subject of the process and did not benefit from peer communication. It was observed that the results of observations and interviews showed consistency or not. It was observed that teachers could not integrate all observed activities with different types of activities. It was noticed that the interview results and the observation results included inconsistencies at this point. It is understood that the opinions of the teachers are compatible with their applications in terms of the acquisition of skills among the achievements that they deem necessary and in order to adapt their mathematics activities to daily life. Keywords: Mathematical language, mathematical concept, preschool education