Teacher communication and the role of language use in the primary mathematics classroom discourse / Liew Kee Kor and Chap Sam Lim

Language is central to learning and acts as a medium or a tool through which new learning is
assimilated and defined.The teaching and learning of mathematics which mediated by language
is complicated in a multilingual context. This paper reports a study that explored the
communication and language use in a multicultural Malaysian primary mathematics context.
The aim of this study was twofold. Firstly, it investigated the language use by teachers in the
mathematics classroom discourse, and secondly, it studied the roles of language use by the
teachers in teaching mathematics. Six mathematics teachers from three types of primary schools
participated in this study. Data were collected by video recording 12 classroom lessons and
interview with each teacher after each lesson. Results showed that language use in the three
types of primary schools mathematics classroom reflects the ethnicity of the pupils in the
schools. In the weaker classes, both novice and expert teachers, in particular, those from the
Chinese schools switched from English to pupils’ spoken language to teach for understanding. It
was also observed that language use assumed different roles in the mathematics discourse. The
three important roles identified are: for explaining, questioning and discussing among peers.
This paper concludes with some implications for language use in primary school mathematics
within a bi/multilingual context.