Stepping outside the ordinary expectations of schooling: effect of school language on assessment of children’s knowledge of mathematics in Ghana

E.M Wilmot

doi:10.4314/ajesms.v7i1.61570

Abstract

As a result of barriers erected by language, especially in situations where 'school language' is different from children‘s mother tongue, there could often be incongruity between children‘s knowledge of mathematics and teachers‘ assessment of it. This paper, a case study conducted in Ghana, West Africa, shows how children‘s 'mother language‘ can be used to make what is 'invisible‘ to teachers - children‘s true knowledge of mathematics - 'visible‘. By changing the medium of instruction from the dominant classroom language to the child‘s mother tongue this study reveals how it takes stepping outside the ordinary to see the weaknesses in teachers' assessment practices.Keywords: medium of instruction, school language, mother tongue, assessing mathematics in early years, mathematics achievement in early years

Highlights

School culture may not always be congruent with every child‘s way of learning
This paper focuses on the mathematical ability of two Primary 2 students in Ghana to make the familiar strange by revealing how institutions and cultures might come into conflict with one another without being noticed
By comparing the mathematical problem solving behavior of the two students, the paper brings out the negative effects of school language on the way children‘s mathematical ability are assessed by teachers

Summary

Introduction

School culture may not always be congruent with every child‘s way of learning. the incongruence in the ways in which a particular child‘s culture interacts with the institutional culture may not be always evident to those who manage the school system. By comparing the mathematical problem solving behavior of the two students, the paper brings out the negative effects of school language on the way children‘s mathematical ability are assessed by teachers It is an offshoot of a broader study conducted in Ghana to investigate Ghanaian children‘s adding schemes. The child‘s performance during the clinical interviews raises a number of questions regarding how children's learning could be affected if school language, the primary school cultural resource, is not available to them and the extent to which their knowledge could be incorrectly assessed. These issues are the foci of this paper. The paper ends with the conclusion where pertinent questions for researchers and practitioners are raised

Background to the study

Background of the selected children

Results and Discussion

Conclusion