Abstract:

This paper presents the study what aims to disclose how pre-service primary teachers understand an explanation as a teaching method and how in-service primary teachers use an explanation in mathematics classes. The data consists of the pre-service teachers‘ survey and in-service teachers‘ interviews conducted by the pre-service primary school teachers. The qualitative content analysis was used as data analysis method. The research findings reveal that pre-service primary school teachers are concerned on a choosing of an appropriate explanation way, they are interested in how an explanation need to be made, and how to master their own mathematics explanation skills. According to the surveyed in-service primary school teachers, it is necessary to pay more attention to choosing of mathematics explanation type and using of eligible words. Practically based explanation is the dominated type of explanation used by the questioned primary school teachers-mentors.

Keywords:

Explanation as a teaching method, mathematics didactics, pre-service teachers, primary school.