6 Findings
6.3 Language Use with Regard to the Mathematics Register
Table 2 Teachers’ language use preferences with reasons (n=62)
Theme Percentage
I use mostly English (it is the common student language or it is the LoLT) 85
I code-switch to support students’ understanding 52
English is better for the teaching of mathematics (terminology advantage). 30
I use mostly IsiZulu/Setswana (it is the LoLT) 26
IsiZulu/Setswana is better—it is the home language and better understood by students
24 English should be used because of the policy switch to English in Grade 4 17 Teaching maths in IsiZulu/Setswana is difficult (terminology disadvantage) 9
Grade 4 students. Grade 3 students used more indigenous languages than Grade 4s.
Language mixing was not common, but was higher in the Grade 4 groups than in the Grade 3 groups. Symbolic language (broader use of the mathematics register) was also not common and was used more by Grade 4s which can be explained since Grade 4s would have greater knowledge of the mathematics register.
Aligned with the finding in relation to more pure language use in explanations can be seen in Table2, that most of the teachers favour one language when they teach and that this language is determined by the LoLT.
The CAPS policy thus appears to be influencing teachers’ language use and creating a system that favours multiple monolingualism rather than multilingualism.
A high percentage of teachers (85%) expressed a preference for English as the LoLT.
This could be seen as policy compliance, since from Grade 4 onwards, English is the LoLT in all schools in spite of it not being the home language of the majority of students. Despite the general tendency towards the use of pure language, 52% of teachers indicated that they used code-switching to support student understanding showing that while their expressed preference is evidence of a heteroglossic ideology, the enactment of this is monoglossic. 30% of teachers mentioned the terminology
‘advantage’ of English while 9% spoke of the terminology ‘disadvantage’ of the indigenous languages. Number names are worth noting here as they are mentioned by many teachers, who say things like,It is difficult to write number names in IsiZulu or Sesotho. This leads into the next section of the chapter which looks more closely at the mathematics register.
Fig. 5 ‘Translations’ given diagrammatically, symbolically or numerically
translations is given.
Figure5shows three such types of words/phrases. Firstly, the operation names (used when describing rules for numerical patterns) were given symbolically by some students (e.g. subtract shown as—), secondly some words/phrases were given using numeric examples (e.g. number pattern shown as 4, 8, 12) and thirdly, words that could be visualised were given diagrammatically (e.g. geometric pattern, circle, square and triangle). In terms of the mathematics register, all these were accepted as correct ‘translations’ between languages. The findings for the translations (given as percentages) according to language and direction of translation for teachers and students are shown in Fig.6.
It can be seen from Fig.6that while on average 15% of the teachers were able to translate between 16 and 20 words correctly almost half of teachers (49%) translated between 11 and 15 words correctly. This was better than the students, who as it can be seen in Fig.6, struggled to translate the mathematical words. Only 1% (33 out of 2981) students were able to translate between 16 and 20 words/phrases correctly.
Fig. 6 Percentages of correct teacher and student translations by direction of translation
Table 3 Comparison of translation success according to LoLT and direction of translation Comparison: percentage differences
16 <t< 20 11 <t< 15 6 <t< 10 1 <t< 5 t=0
3Z(-E)-EZ 0 −7 −11 7 13
3Z(-E)-ZE 0 −1 −2 16 11
4Z(-E)-EZ 2 5 11 −9 −10
4Z(-E)-ZE 1 0 −5 −5 9
3S(-E)-ES 1 14 2 −37 16
3S(-E)-SE 6 1 6 −8 −5
4S(-E)-ES 1 4 30 −17 −22
4S(-E)-SE 3 14 6 −27 7
The most common number of correct translations by students was between 1 and 5 (of 20) words correctly translated. There were many students who could not translate any words correctly—more so for IsiZulu than for Setswana.
As discussed above, matches for home language and LoLT for students were very poor. An investigation of the translation success across the eight different translation sets revealed certain patterns. This is shown in Table3.
Table3gives the percentage differences between translation success in schools with an indigenous language LoLT and English LoLT according to the direction of translation. The positive differences show, admittedly for very low success rates, strength in the indigenous LoLT schools. The negative differences show the strength of translations in the English LoLT schools, for all grades and directions (apart from the Grade 3 IsiZulu group). Although these differences are noted, there is not one strong pattern. Success in the translation activity was so low for students, it could be inferred that the CAPS policy, in pushing for multiple monolingualism creates problems for speakers who may know some maths words in one language and not in another. This reduces their power of expression, since it does not allow speakers to use their full language repertoire.
It is of interest for the teaching and learning of mathematics to note which of the words were better translated and which were not. The pattern of successful translation was similar across all of the translation sets. Counts of all correct translations were recorded and represented graphically, one example of which is shown below in Fig.7.
As it can be seen in Fig.7, commonly used words that are used across more mathe- matical content areas than that of patterns were translated better by both students and teachers. The words that were more often correctly translated were: add, subtract, fives, counting in 10s, circle, triangle and square. Most students (and some teachers) were not able to translate the words flow diagram and interval. Other words that were not well translated (or translated with mixed success) by both teachers and students were: counting on, forwards, describe, multiple, number sequence and geometric pattern.
Fig. 7 Percentage correct Grade 3 and 4 student translations: English-Zulu
The variation and accuracy of the translations give insight into teachers and students knowledge of what could be called the ‘standardised’ vocabulary of patterns.
The finding is clear—teachers’ knowledge of the vocabulary is far from perfect and student knowledge is extremely poor (see Figs.6 and7). Overall (more so in the student sample) many variations in spelling and several synonyms were found. The synonyms (especially in the indigenous languages) should be incorporated into the Department of Arts and Culture (DAC) dictionary, since translators tend to restrict themselves to using the words in the DAC dictionary. The translation activity revealed issues could arise in regard to language use, especially in written texts if the texts use only the more ‘pure’ word forms recommended in the DAC. For example, the DAC recommended word for number pattern is the more formalpopegopalowhile the less formal word for pattern viz. diphetheneng tse tsa dipalowhich is used in student print material might be more familiar to some. Our findings support that the DAC list is not adequate as a standard for translations of school learning material particularly since many dialects exist which do not all use the same words (Mojela, 2008). All possible alternatives for words should be included in general word lists so that they are more representative of the spoken languages. This and other research in South Africa indicates that language is not highly standardised (Mojela, 2008;
Bokamba,2014) although the CAPS policy has assumed that it is.