I report the results of an analysis of an episode of elementary school second language mathematics classroom talk focused on the classification of geometric forms, drawing on a dialogic, sources of meaning perspective. The episode was selected because participants make use of a variety of features of language, including vocabulary, gestures and diagrams. The analysis drew on methods and principles from conversation analysis and revealed that interactional repair was a key feature in the organisation of the episode. Repair sequences are stretches of interaction in which participants deal with explicitly signalled 'trouble' in participants' working assumption of shared understanding. The results include a distinction between meaning-focused and language-focused repair, with some repair sequences embedded within others. This layered organisation is important in the emergence of meaning for participants' utterances and mediates the tension between centripetal and centrifugal language forces. The findings highlight the complexity of mathematics classroom interaction and suggest possibilities for the careful management of focusing on language and on mathematical meaning in classroom interaction.