An investigation of the English language demands of mathematical texts on data handling used in intermediate phase mathematics
- Authors: Jones, Angela Peta
- Date: 2022-10-14
- Subjects: Mathematics Study and teaching (Elementary) South Africa , Middle school education South Africa , Information storage and retrieval systems Mathematics , Language complexity , Textbooks Readability , Language arts Correlation with content subjects South Africa , Content area reading South Africa
- Language: English
- Type: Academic theses , Master's theses , text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/405259 , vital:70155
- Description: In the Intermediate Phase the majority of South African learners are transitioning from learning in their mother tongue to learning in English as well as from learning to read to reading to learn, and this is a major challenge. Textbooks are a key mediating artefact in the learning of mathematics and they present a challenge to the learner in terms of the language comprehension demands The data handling sections of mathematics textbooks are particularly dense in text. This is an important part of the mathematics curriculum as it is the beginning of statistical literacy learning. We need to be able to question, evaluate claims based on data, create arguments we can defend and use data meaningfully, it is thus crucial that learners acquire statistical literacy. This research sets out to examine the text in the data handling sections of four Intermediate Phase Mathematics book series in order to answer the following research question: What are the language comprehension demands of English mathematical texts on data handling that are used in South African Intermediate Phase Mathematics? The theories framing the study are Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory and Cummins’ second language acquisition theory. It is an interpretivist mixed method case study that takes the form of a document analysis.. The findings indicate that many units in the books analysed have a higher readability level than the grade level and will thus present a challenge to learners in terms of their ability to access the mathematical content. An analysis of the linguistic complexity revealed that the features contributing most to the complexity of the texts included words with seven or more letters, prepositional phrases, infinitives, complex verbs and complex/compound sentences. An examination of the non-textual elements revealed that most of them are accurate, connected, concise, contextual and these add to the comprehensibility although there were a few which could be possibly be distractors. It is hoped that the empirical findings of this study, will sensitise educators and publishers involved with the design of textbooks and workbooks to the type of language currently found and that they might give attention to the needs of English language learners when developing these texts. , Thesis (MEd) -- Faculty of Education, Education, 2022
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2022-10-14
- Authors: Jones, Angela Peta
- Date: 2022-10-14
- Subjects: Mathematics Study and teaching (Elementary) South Africa , Middle school education South Africa , Information storage and retrieval systems Mathematics , Language complexity , Textbooks Readability , Language arts Correlation with content subjects South Africa , Content area reading South Africa
- Language: English
- Type: Academic theses , Master's theses , text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/405259 , vital:70155
- Description: In the Intermediate Phase the majority of South African learners are transitioning from learning in their mother tongue to learning in English as well as from learning to read to reading to learn, and this is a major challenge. Textbooks are a key mediating artefact in the learning of mathematics and they present a challenge to the learner in terms of the language comprehension demands The data handling sections of mathematics textbooks are particularly dense in text. This is an important part of the mathematics curriculum as it is the beginning of statistical literacy learning. We need to be able to question, evaluate claims based on data, create arguments we can defend and use data meaningfully, it is thus crucial that learners acquire statistical literacy. This research sets out to examine the text in the data handling sections of four Intermediate Phase Mathematics book series in order to answer the following research question: What are the language comprehension demands of English mathematical texts on data handling that are used in South African Intermediate Phase Mathematics? The theories framing the study are Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory and Cummins’ second language acquisition theory. It is an interpretivist mixed method case study that takes the form of a document analysis.. The findings indicate that many units in the books analysed have a higher readability level than the grade level and will thus present a challenge to learners in terms of their ability to access the mathematical content. An analysis of the linguistic complexity revealed that the features contributing most to the complexity of the texts included words with seven or more letters, prepositional phrases, infinitives, complex verbs and complex/compound sentences. An examination of the non-textual elements revealed that most of them are accurate, connected, concise, contextual and these add to the comprehensibility although there were a few which could be possibly be distractors. It is hoped that the empirical findings of this study, will sensitise educators and publishers involved with the design of textbooks and workbooks to the type of language currently found and that they might give attention to the needs of English language learners when developing these texts. , Thesis (MEd) -- Faculty of Education, Education, 2022
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2022-10-14
The place of language in supporting children’s mathematical development: two Grade 4 teachers’ use of classroom talk
- Authors: Robertson, Sally-Ann, 1952-
- Date: 2018
- Subjects: Mathematics Study and teaching (Elementary) South Africa , Multilingual education South Africa , Language and education South Africa , Translanguaging (Linguistics) , Language policy South Africa
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/62072 , vital:28104
- Description: Measures of mathematics achievement (documented locally, and in internationally comparative terms) have shown that South African learners whose first language (L1) is different from their language of learning and teaching (LoLT) are at a significant disadvantage, most particularly learners from vulnerable or marginalised communities. This transdisciplinary case study looks at two experienced Grade 4 teachers’ mathematics classroom talk practices. It is situated within a second language (L2) teaching/learning context in which teachers and learners share the same first language, but mathematics learning and teaching takes place officially through an L2 (English). The study is located within a qualitative and interpretive framework. It brings together insights from a range of distinct but complementary theoretical disciplines in its analysis of the empirical classroom observation and interview data. Its theoretical framing derives initially from professional literature relating to L2 teaching and learning. This is then embedded within a broader theoretical frame deriving from the work of Vygotsky, Bernstein and Halliday, each of whom has focussed on the centrality of language to the teaching/ learning process, as well as contributed to a heightened appreciation of socio-cultural influences on learners’ meaning-making processes. The study illuminates some of the linguistic challenges to L2 children’s maximal participation in the learning of school mathematics. It points too to the significant challenge many South African mathematics teachers face in trying to meet curriculum coverage and pacing demands, while simultaneously facilitating their learners’ ongoing induction – in and through L2 predominantly – into mathematically-appropriate discourse. Grade 4 is a year in which such challenges are often more acutely felt. Independently of the transition across to an L2 for the majority of South African learners, this is the year also where - relative to the foundation phase years - learners encounter an expansion of knowledge areas and more specialised academic text. Many learners struggle to adjust to these higher conceptual and linguistic demands, often leading to what has been termed a ‘fourth-grade slump’. The study highlights the need for more sustained and proactive challenging of perceptions that English as LoLT is the obvious route to educational - and subsequent economic - opportunity. Recognition of the consequences deriving from the choice of English as the main LoLT for mathematics teaching and learning could help counterbalance deficit discourses implicating poor teaching as a major contributor to South Africa’s poor mathematics education outcomes. The study highlights further that, if language is genuinely to be used as the ‘tool’ for learning it is claimed to be, synergistic opportunities for the dovetailing of insights into L2 learners’ literacy/ numeracy development require further exploration. It points to the need for ongoing professional development support for teachers of mathematics (at both pre- and in-service levels) that focuses on broadening and deepening their understandings around the linguistic, and hence epistemological, consequences of learning mathematics through an L2. Expanding mathematics teachers’ repertoires of strategies for supporting learners’ developing cognitive academic language proficiency (CALP) in mathematics (in both L1 and L2) would involve a conception of ‘academic language’ in mathematics which goes beyond a constrained interpretation of ‘legitimate’ mathematical text as that which is in texts such as curriculum documents and text books. Especially important here are strategies which foreground the value of classroom talk in assisting L2 children towards becoming more confident, competent and explorative bilingual learners, and thereby, more active agents of their own mathematical meaning-making processes. The study argues that such meaning-making processes would be further strengthened were additive bilingualism (in place of current predominantly subtractive practices) to be genuinely taken up as core to any teaching and learning of mathematics in contexts such as those described in this case study.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2018
- Authors: Robertson, Sally-Ann, 1952-
- Date: 2018
- Subjects: Mathematics Study and teaching (Elementary) South Africa , Multilingual education South Africa , Language and education South Africa , Translanguaging (Linguistics) , Language policy South Africa
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/62072 , vital:28104
- Description: Measures of mathematics achievement (documented locally, and in internationally comparative terms) have shown that South African learners whose first language (L1) is different from their language of learning and teaching (LoLT) are at a significant disadvantage, most particularly learners from vulnerable or marginalised communities. This transdisciplinary case study looks at two experienced Grade 4 teachers’ mathematics classroom talk practices. It is situated within a second language (L2) teaching/learning context in which teachers and learners share the same first language, but mathematics learning and teaching takes place officially through an L2 (English). The study is located within a qualitative and interpretive framework. It brings together insights from a range of distinct but complementary theoretical disciplines in its analysis of the empirical classroom observation and interview data. Its theoretical framing derives initially from professional literature relating to L2 teaching and learning. This is then embedded within a broader theoretical frame deriving from the work of Vygotsky, Bernstein and Halliday, each of whom has focussed on the centrality of language to the teaching/ learning process, as well as contributed to a heightened appreciation of socio-cultural influences on learners’ meaning-making processes. The study illuminates some of the linguistic challenges to L2 children’s maximal participation in the learning of school mathematics. It points too to the significant challenge many South African mathematics teachers face in trying to meet curriculum coverage and pacing demands, while simultaneously facilitating their learners’ ongoing induction – in and through L2 predominantly – into mathematically-appropriate discourse. Grade 4 is a year in which such challenges are often more acutely felt. Independently of the transition across to an L2 for the majority of South African learners, this is the year also where - relative to the foundation phase years - learners encounter an expansion of knowledge areas and more specialised academic text. Many learners struggle to adjust to these higher conceptual and linguistic demands, often leading to what has been termed a ‘fourth-grade slump’. The study highlights the need for more sustained and proactive challenging of perceptions that English as LoLT is the obvious route to educational - and subsequent economic - opportunity. Recognition of the consequences deriving from the choice of English as the main LoLT for mathematics teaching and learning could help counterbalance deficit discourses implicating poor teaching as a major contributor to South Africa’s poor mathematics education outcomes. The study highlights further that, if language is genuinely to be used as the ‘tool’ for learning it is claimed to be, synergistic opportunities for the dovetailing of insights into L2 learners’ literacy/ numeracy development require further exploration. It points to the need for ongoing professional development support for teachers of mathematics (at both pre- and in-service levels) that focuses on broadening and deepening their understandings around the linguistic, and hence epistemological, consequences of learning mathematics through an L2. Expanding mathematics teachers’ repertoires of strategies for supporting learners’ developing cognitive academic language proficiency (CALP) in mathematics (in both L1 and L2) would involve a conception of ‘academic language’ in mathematics which goes beyond a constrained interpretation of ‘legitimate’ mathematical text as that which is in texts such as curriculum documents and text books. Especially important here are strategies which foreground the value of classroom talk in assisting L2 children towards becoming more confident, competent and explorative bilingual learners, and thereby, more active agents of their own mathematical meaning-making processes. The study argues that such meaning-making processes would be further strengthened were additive bilingualism (in place of current predominantly subtractive practices) to be genuinely taken up as core to any teaching and learning of mathematics in contexts such as those described in this case study.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2018
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