Anthony A. Essien

The Role of Language in the Teaching and Learning of Early Grade Mathematics: An 11-Year Account of Research in Kenya, Malawi and South Africa.

The purpose of this study was to provide a systematic review of research that has been carried out between 2006 and 2016 on the role of language in early grade (Grades 1–4) mathematics teaching and learning in three countries—Kenya, Malawi and South Africa. These countries were selected because they have similar characteristics: teaching and learning occur in a multilingual context; their language in education policies are similar; transition from mother tongue to English happens during the early grades; and most of the learners learn mathematics in English—a language which for most is not their first/home language. Research outputs between 2006 and 2016 from the three countries were sourced from peer-reviewed mathematics and general education journals, monitoring and evaluation reports, and book chapters. Findings from the study revealed that there is a lack of longitudinal studies that investigate the impact of language on the teaching and learning of mathematics and that there are few studies on how teachers are and should be trained to teach mathematics in the early grades. The study also found that the implementation of the language in education policies in the three different focus countries is fraught with difficulties owing to a number of factors, amongst them the fact that the indigenous languages are not yet fully developed as academic languages. Finally, existing literature highlights the importance of the use of code switching and the provision of materials in the home language(s) of early graders. Recommendations regarding policy/curriculum, teacher education and pedagogic practices are made.

Language Diversity in Mathematics Teacher Education: Challenges Across Three Countries

This chapter focuses on the awareness and the practices of mathematics teacher educators in linguistically diverse classrooms across three countries—South Africa, Malawi, and Catalonia-Spain. We explore whether and how mathematics teacher educators’ awareness in three mathematics classrooms (one from each country) impact on classroom practice and whether these practices were anchored in becoming teachers of mathematics, becoming teachers of mathematics in multilingual classrooms, becoming learners of mathematics content or becoming proficient English users. The findings reveal that the mathematics teacher educators were generally aware of the context of their practice: that they were teaching linguistically diverse mathematics student teachers who would most likely teach mathematics in a similar linguistic context. However, the practices that were used by these teacher educators were anchored in and position mathematics student teachers as becoming teachers of mathematics and becoming learners of mathematics content. Little attention was paid to becoming teachers of mathematics in multilingual contexts.

Operationalising Wenger’s Communities of Practice Theory for Use in Multilingual Mathematics Teacher Education Contexts

In this chapter, we draw substantially on Wenger’s (1998) Communities of Practice (CoP) theory to develop and then propose a methodological approach for analyzing pre-service mathematics teacher education multilingual classrooms. The approach emerged in Essien’s (2013) study that investigated how pre-service mathematics teachers were being prepared to teach mathematics in multilingual contexts. Like many others in mathematics education, the theoretical frame for the study drew from a disciplinary domain in the social sciences to investigate the teaching and learning of mathematics.

Adler’s Contribution to Research on Mathematics Education and Language Diversity

Research on the relationship between language and mathematics learning is recent—it only took off after the 1974 UNESCO Symposium that was held in Nairobi focusing on the “Interactions between linguistics and mathematical education”. This area of study has seen growth since then and Jill Adler’s work has contributed much. This chapter explores Adler’s journey and its contribution to research on mathematics and language diversity. We begin the chapter with a description of the genesis of the journey and highlight two of her main contributions to research in this area of study. From these discussions we draw our main argument that the contributions were shaped by three interrelated factors: Jill’s consistent focus on the problem of practice in multilingual mathematics classrooms, the theoretical frameworks and methodologies she used, as well as the timing and context of her research.