Patterned Differences in Grade 3 Mathematics Teachers’ Working with Representations Across Two Language Contexts: Implications for Learning Opportunities

Abstract

In this paper, illustrative excerpts from mathematics lessons are analysed to examine mathematical and multilingual moves between representations within Sepedi and English medium classrooms. Duval’s theory of representational registers and the literature on multilingual practices help foreground similarities within and differences between the instructional practices of four teachers—two teaching in the medium of Sepedi and two in English—as they move between mathematical and multilingual representations in the teaching of numbers. The findings show patterned differences on the basis of the medium of instruction, with the Sepedi medium instruction indicating, primarily, ‘restatement’ moves between the oral and the symbolic modes of representation, whilst the English medium instruction incorporated a higher incidence of mathematical moves between oral, concrete, iconic and symbolic number-based modes of representation. The evidence of broader use of mathematical representational moves as observed in the English medium lessons offers insights into how and, perhaps, why learners’ knowledge development and understanding of early number in English medium classrooms may emerge in ways that are different from the knowledge developed in the Sepedi medium classes. These patterned differences are important to understand in a South African context where language of instruction continues to be associated with differences in mathematical outcomes in ways that, as previously documented, relate to socio-economic disadvantage.