Indigenous Language Speaking Students Learning Mathematics in English: Expectations of and for Teachers

Abstract

Effective mathematics teaching for Indigenous language speaking students needs to be based on fair expectations of both students and teachers. Concepts of 'age-appropriate learning' and 'school readiness' structure assessment expectations that entire cohorts of Indigenous language speaking students are unable to meet. This institutionalises both student and teacher failure, as both are exhorted to meet unachievable expectations. The voices of teachers teaching in a very remote school provide insight into teachers' responses to the mismatch between the system expectations and the teaching context. Teacher interviews in a small Northern Territory school, conducted within an ethnographic study, showed that teachers' decisions regarding the level of mathematics curriculum taught were informed by students' prior learning and by the language dynamic in their classrooms. The need and pressure to teach Standard Australian English also affected how mathematics was taught. This leads to a reformulation of the concept of school readiness to ask how schools can be more ready for their Indigenous language speaking students in terms of preparing and supporting teachers.

Da Symbol Dat Under da Stuffs: Teaching the Language of Maths to Aboriginal Learners of Standard Australian English as a Second Dialect

“…The teachers in Edmonds-Wathen (2015) reported challenges from the need for a shared language before adding new mathematical language, and the difficulty in distinguishing the effects of language issues in a complex situation. We show these issues are relevant in a second dialect acquisition setting, where language learning needs can be invisible.…”

“…Remarks from teachers quoted in a recent study (Edmonds-Wathen, 2015) express their experiences of this in a multilingual community in the remote Northern Territory, where several Indigenous languages are spoken (Edmonds-Wathen, 2015, p. 51), but where Standard Australian English (SAE) 1 is the language of both teaching and educational materials at school. One teacher, for example, stressed the importance of sharing the language of instruction with students, but found that the extra ‘leap forward’ to new mathematics language and concepts was difficult without a shared language.…”

“…Another teacher expressed uncertainty about the extent to which language differences or other unknown factors led to a lack of success in many lessons, such as what had been happening at home, or students being tired. One thought it might be ‘just a combination of everything’ (Edmonds-Wathen, 2015, p. 54).…”

“…They found evidence of difficulties with the mathematical terms size, shape and same . This suggests that issues identified by teachers in Edmonds-Wathen (2015), of second language acquisition co-occurring with the learning of curriculum content, may also apply in a classroom where children speak an ‘invisible’ variety such as Aboriginal English, as they do in classrooms where children are speaking languages more transparently acknowledged as ‘not Standard Australian English’.…”

“…The concerns raised by teachers in Edmonds-Wathen (2015) also show the complexities in identifying the challenges relating to language differences from an array of other factors affecting how students behave and learn at school. Many of these challenges are faced by all children as they become school learners, so there is a need for substantive research into the details of how these play out in the classroom.…”