Teaching for meaning making in mathematics teacher education multilingual contexts: What does it entail?

• In Event: Highlighted Session: What do math teachers need to help their learners succeed? Research and insight on teacher professional development

Proposal

Research has long acknowledged the complexity of the teaching and learning of mathematics in linguistically diverse contexts where, commonly in most African classrooms, teaching and learning happen in a language other than the home language of the majority of students (Essien, 2018). In such contexts, language use is neither trivial nor straightforward. A wealth of literature exits indicating that the main reason for multilingual students’ poor performance in mathematics is due to the limited language proficiencies of these students. The Threshold theory (Cummins, 1979), for example, propounds that proficiency in both home language and English (where English is LoLT) is necessary for students to reap cognitive benefits that accrue to being bi/multilingual. Using classroom events on the mathematical concept of zero as an example, I argue that in the African context, the ability to teach or understand mathematical concepts goes beyond mere proficiency in either one’s home (indigenous) language or English (the LoLT). In doing this, I contend that structural linguistic differences between the students’ home language and English, and cross-linguistic issues (interaction between languages) are key factors that need to be borne in mind when teaching mathematics in the African context. This begs the question as to what practices are more effective in teaching mathematics in the specific multilingual context of Africa and how to teacher development initiatives can harness the epistemic potential of multiple languages in contexts of language diversity. Moving from empirical data, this paper, thus, theorises how teacher development initiatives can enculturate teachers to draw on students’ multilingual repertoire to raise metalinguistic/cross-linguistic awareness (and cross-linguistic comparison), and by so doing, empower teachers to draw on learners’ full repertoire so that they (learners) can benefit from their multilingualism.

Author

• Anthony Essien, University of The Witwatersrand