INTERVIEW NO 5
A: INTERVIEWER: P BRIJLAL B: INTERVIEWEE: GBN
INTERVIEW NO. 6
A: INTERVIEWER: P BRIJLAL
A: How did this programme impact on your professional development in terms of content knowledge, your methods of teaching in the classroom, confidence that you have as a teacher and any other aspects. Lets deal with content knowledge.
B: The content of math lit is related to our world, it is interesting because we are dealing with things we are doing in our daily life. So I find it very interesting and I also gain knowledge of some other thing like statement of account, to know where this account is coming from, how it is calculated.
A: And your teaching methods think of how you taught in your other subjects and how would teach math lit. How did you gain professionally?
B: I think when comparing math lit with other subjects you have to obtain what you have to do in class. That is where you get the experience and gain confidence and you know what you have to find out in the classroom and you have to start by when they were teaching us. It has given us a lot of knowledge to know what is expected from us.
A: How did you feel when you taught in the classroom after you taught math lit?
B: I think in the classroom it was not so easy because it involved language. Problems with math lit with kids in the classroom. They don’t like to learn this long statements. In math lit you have to read and understand so they like short statements. The main problem is that they don’t like to read the information given to them.
A: How did you go about teaching it to them? Like the methods you used. Did the problem help you in solving the problem?
B: Yes because of the workshop, it is helping. The Ace math lit was a good workshop.
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A: Did the course help you to gain confidence in the classroom.
B: Yes, math lit me have no with, the way we were thought and the way we were writing our assessments.
A: What was the most useful module you studied? In NMMU you did not do any modules you did grade 10, 11 and 12.
B: I think we started grade ten it was not so simple and not used to the style they were teaching us but the content was relevant and grade 11 and 12 was becoming more simple and easier. In fact I passed with flying colours.
A: Which section did you feel was the best?
B: Shapes and measurement I enjoyed it. In pure math this was very difficult to understand shapes and measurement but in math lit the way they were doing it became simpler to do it.
A: What was the least useful module and why?
B: Probability, sometimes the kids find it difficult to understand. They can understand now and they forget.
A: Was there anything that you did not like.
B: I can’t say that there was something that I did not like. I was comfortable with all the topics.
A: What is in your opinion about the timetabling, mode of delivery and contact sessions?
B: The contact sessions was taking up a lot of our time but it also helped us a lot by gaining more knowledge and at the same time we were complaining because during holidays we were always there.
A: What is your opinion about the materials, were there sufficient exercises, and were the materials good?
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B: The books that were given to us from the beginning, it was relevant and I think that the teachers were also good. They were not treating us like adults; they were treating us like kids in the classroom. They were taking us by step one by one.
A: What is your opinion about the content covered in the module was the content enough to actually teach at school.
B: I think it was well enough to teach all grades. All the content is related.
A: What is your opinion about the quality of the tutors?
B: We had two lecturers. The first one if I can remember went away, I don’t know the reason but he was not so bad he was just average but the young man that came to us he was very good.
This man was from Chatsworth and he was very good and this is the lecturer I remember.
A: What is your opinion about the admin support, regarding registration, queries dps.
B: Yes, we were having support.
A: What can you say about academic support, what is your opinion about the support they offered.
B: I think they are doing more because the content is increasing.
A: What stopped you from dropping out?
B: I find it very challenging in the Bed honors and some of things I am being taught is irrelevant.
A: I am talking about the Ace.
B: I did not drop because I was progressing very well, I could manage it because the course was going to help me in future.
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A: What can you say about your previous qualification, did it help you with this programme, do you think the work you did then is more difficult than the work you are doing now.
B: I think math lit was a different subject all together. There is no relationship with these two things. Ace was the third course I was doing, the second course I was doing part time also and I had no time and we were very helpless sometimes and in the second module you have to struggle on your own and there was no teacher at the time but in math lit the teacher was following you all the time.
A: Why is it that the ladies in the programme had a lower pass rate than men? 38% of the females passed and 51% of the males passed. Why do you females drop out more than males, what are the challengers for females.
B: I think we are the same and females have a lot of things to do like at home men have got a lot of time. At home the females have to do everything at home. So after they do their
schoolwork they are very tired.
A: Do you wish to further your studies after math literacy at a post graduate level.
B: I am still interested in studying, in fact I am half way through my Bed honors and I like to learn.
A: Do you feel disadvantaged in the class that you have not taught grade 8 and 9 math.
B: No in fact I have no problem with that. I taught grade 8 and 9 and I think it is useful to get the knowledge of pure math.
A: When you teaching math lit what are your learners misconceptions?
B: In fact I have explained it to them one by one so I can make them understand all the concepts of math. I have to repeat one thing for one week if they don’t understand I will have to repeat until they understand it.
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A: Do you have any methods or do you have any creative ideas on how to solve these problems?
B: Maybe if they have written a test and after that I have to give them the feedback and do the revision and you find sometimes the problem is the language and sometimes you find that you have to teach them some language skills.
A: I observed your lesson and I found that you code switch when you have an isizulu class you teach in Zulu and you teach in English, do you think that this helps.
B: Sometimes you find the Zulu speaking children although they understand something and those things that they can’t understand I will switch a little bit to try and explain them in their own language what is required of them.
A: Do you think this is going to help because they write their exam papers in English, this code switch do you think it is going to help.
B: I think it helps a little. I used to tell them that the content is in English so you must be prepared to understand in English because I won’t be there to explain to them in English.
A: What makes math lit a practical subject?
B: Because what we are dealing with in math we are coming across it everyday and you have to understand everything surrounding you. It gives you ideas on things we need to know.
A: Do you think math students will benefit if you give two math lit periods a week.
B: In fact there is not much difference between the both because they are working with numbers and yes I think that they can gain.
A: What makes math lit different from math?
B: It is related to what we doing in daily life, math lit. In pure math they don’t like solving for x, something that you don’t understand so in math they are speaking about things they don’t
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