ABSTRACT
The development of knowledge and skills in mathematics holds the key to African’s industrialization and poverty alleviation in the 21st century. Language plays a central role in teaching and learning of mathematics. The Ministry of Education, Science Technology recognizes the need for Kenyan education system to use the predominant language spoken in the school catchment area for child care, pre-primary and in education of lower primary children. Children learn mathematics well when they are instructed in a language that they understand well. The available studies shows that, in lower primary, learners’ achievement in mathematics is affected negatively when instructed in a language which they do not understand well. The purpose of this study was to establish the language used for instruction in teaching/learning of mathematics, reasons for the choice of language used and the challenges faced by the pupils and teachers that relate to the language used for instruction. The study was carried out in the public schools in Kasarani Sub-County. Public schools were selected because they are funded by the government and therefore there is likelihood that they are uniformly equipped with the learning resources. Simple random sampling was used to select these schools. One class from each of the sampled six schools was used for the study. Six schools, which is equivalent to 24% of the total population, were sampled for the study. A total of 60 class two learners and 6 class two teachers were involved in the study. The learners were divided into two categories: five top and five low achievers from every sampled class. The study utilized descriptive research design. The researcher used two schools which were not involved in the main study to carry out a pilot study. To verify research tools test-retest method was used. The data were collected by means of researcher designed teachers’ questionnaires, learners’ interview guide and an observation guide for a mathematics lesson. Qualitative data were organized according to themes and then teated for descriptive statistics analysis
– frequencies and percentages. The findings indicated that teachers did not adhere to the recommended language policy on instructional language in teaching and learning. In the findings various languages were used during mathematics lessons. The study recommends intensive monitoring of implementation of language policy in education.
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION AND BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY
Introduction
This chapter deals with the background to the study, statement of the problem, objectives of the study, research questions, assumptions, limitations and delimitation of the study, significance of the study, theoretical and conceptual framework and operational definition of terms.
Background to the Study
According to Lamb (2001), success in school mathematics is the best predictor for success in life. Thus, it is important for all students to succeed in school mathematics- regardless of background, gender, or language. But among the school subjects, study of mathematics is considered by the students as a Herculean task. A high proportion of students hates mathematics and performs very badly in mathematics examination. Today as in the past, many students struggle with mathematics and become affected as they continually encounter obstacles to engagement. Mathematics is generally seen as a difficult subject and how this subject is communicated to pupils will influence how pupils learn the subject. Classroom routines play an important role in developing student’s mathematical thinking and reasoning.
The development of knowledge and skills in Mathematics and Science holds the key to Africa’s industrialization and poverty alleviation in the 21st century (UNESCO, 2010). Mathematics is considered to be a key curriculum subject in many countries. Cockroft
(1982) expressed this importance by noting that there is a general agreement that every child should study mathematics at school level.
In the USA, not many researchers have shown interest in following this trend of the effect of language proficiency on mathematics achievement. However, the findings of a number of studies that looked into the issue since then Padilla, 2011; Calderon, 2001) indicate that the students’ language proficiency has an impact on their mathematical performance.
In the UK, Philips and Birrell (2015) compared the performance of students in the English medium who are native English speakers with Asians whose English is a second language. The performance of the Asian students in mathematics was far below their native English-speaking peers and also below the national mean. Further analysis of the examination items indicated that language factors were responsible for the low performance of the students.
Another study was conducted in the Wales where the students have different linguistic backgrounds. Some attended Welsh medium schools while others were taught in English. It was reported that students in Welsh medium schools performed better in mathematics than those in English-medium schools. Language factors were reported to contribute to these differences. In a similar study, Roardria (2010) conducted an intensive study in Ireland on students whose local language is Gaelic. The study found out that students in the transition from a Gaelic medium primary level education to an English medium second level mathematics education experienced a disadvantage of 8.7 percent in performance on mathematical word problems. A significant relationship was also found
between the students’ performance on mathematical word problems through the medium of English and their Gaelic language proficiency. Furthermore, it was found that students with a high level of proficiency in both languages, and those who were predominantly proficient in Gaelic performed mathematically better than their monolingual peers.
In French immersion programs in Canada, Bournot Trites and Reeder (2010) found that the group with high intensity French instruction outperformed the monolingual groups in mathematics and science. It was noted that by the time the students got into grade 6 they outperformed their monolingual counterparts in all skill areas (Swain, 2005). Therefore, overall, Canadian students have experienced positive benefits from participating in French immersion programs. Some other studies have found that the immersion students performed at a comparable level with English program students (Swain, 2005).
In New Zealand, Barton et al. (2005) conducted a series of studies under a sociolinguistics framework with the aim of investigating students who were learning mathematics using English as a second language. The research which outlined the interplay between the language proficiency level and the students’ performance at the university level found that, due to language difficulty, this class of students experienced a disadvantage of about 10 and 15 percent in mathematics. These researchers also found that students learning mathematics through English medium as a second language encountered greater difficulties with text than anticipated, and as such they wrongly relied more on symbolic modes of working. Surprisingly, it was found that these second language mathematics learners were unaware of their disadvantage (Barton, Chan, King, Neville-Barton and Sneddon, 2005).
