On prospective teachers' evaluations of freshman students' written arguments

In this paper we present a qualitative study in which we analyse how a group of prospective mathematics teachers evaluates written arguments produced by freshman students solving a problem involving graphs. The prospective teachers were attending a course of Mathematics Education for the second year of a master degree in Mathematics. In particular we focus on how prospective teachers in their evaluations look at mathematical content, language, and argumentative structure. The outcomes show, on the one hand, a certain attention to some linguistic aspects, on the other hand, a greater attention to the content than to the argumentative structure of the texts. We suggest that prospective teachers' models for linguistic education are often the standard ones, based on conformity to grammar or style rather than on adequacy with respect to goals.