Teaching and learning in the multilingual context in the early grades in South Africa

• In Event: Highlighted Session: Mathematics education in multilingual contexts – optimizing opportunities for learning through language

Proposal

Learning in mother tongue improves children’s learning outcomes and, consequently, their overall academic performance (UNESCO, 2006, Awopetu, 2016). The international community has begun examining the cognitive and academic impact of learning mathematics in mother tongue. The findings suggest that children who do so achieve better results (REF). Potential explanations include children’s ability to understand and grapple with rich mathematical problems (Chitera, 2010), and to explain their reasoning (Nkonde et al., 2018); teachers’ ability to focus on deepening children’s understanding of why mathematical operations or processes work; and the ease with which teachers explain mathematical concepts in mother tongue (Chitera, 2010).

Although these research findings are compelling, there is little guidance on how to modify existing curricula and learning materials to acknowledge the differences inherent in teaching mathematics in mother tongue. This can include, for example, ensuring that mathematical concepts are presented and explored in ways that aligns with how they are expressed and used in the local culture and language or how to eventually transition to labeling and exploring these concepts in the second language, particularly when the second language expresses the concepts differently.

This presentation builds on the theory drawing on data from 2 years of implementation of the Teacher Professional Development programme in Polokwane, Limpopo, South Africa.

Author

• Ingrid Marta Sapire, Funda Wande