Philosophiae Doctor - PhD / It has been noted by Lin (2013) that studies on multilingual talk, as illustrated by code switching in the classroom, have been repetitive and descriptive, and have for a while not been underpinned by substantially new or different questions (Lin, 2013:15). First, many of the studies in the literature have, for instance, concluded that there is a functional allocation of languages (FAL) in multilingual classroom teacher talk (e.g. Baker, 2012; Martin, 1996; Probyn, 2006, 2014; Jegede, 2012; Modupeola, 2013; Salami, 2008), such that language „a‟ is used for presentational knowledge, and language „b‟ is used for explanatory knowledge, and these claims have not been subjected to sustained scrutiny. Secondly, codeswtiching and translanguaging increasingly have been the dominant and exclusive frameworks used, and this has limited the kinds of insights that can be obtained or the kinds of questions that can be posed. / 2024

This study explores whether and how the deliberate use of multiple languages can support or constrain the development of learners’ mathematics proficiency in a multilingual mathematics classroom. The study is an action research in which I transform my teaching, by exploring a new teaching strategy. In the study, learners’ home languages, in addition to English (LoLT), are used in a planned and proactive manner, where a well-selected high cognitive demand task set in multiple languages is used for teaching and learning. The study is done in a grade 11 multilingual mathematics class, at a school where I teach. Findings of the study indicate that Kilpatrick et al’s (2001) five strands of mathematical proficiency prevail across all lessons, that the use of English by both learners and I dominates, and that utterances are mostly conceptual. It is also shown by the findings of the study that using the learners’ home languages in presentation of the mathematical task, and the nature of the task used, supports the learners in the comprehension of the mathematical task, and encourages them to participate more effectively during lessons.

Syftet med denna kunskapsöversikt är att undersöka språkets betydelse i de samhällsorienterande ämnena. För att åstadkomma detta tar vi hjälp av hur forskning belyser och hur de förmedlar ett språkutvecklande arbetssätt i so-ämnen, men även hur det förstärker elevernas språk- och kunskapsutveckling. Anledningen till att vi valde att fördjupa oss i elevers språkutveckling är främst att vi anser frågan vara relevant, då det ställs höga krav på elevers språkliga förmåga i de samhällsorienterande ämnena. Vår kunskapsöversikt kommer därmed ha fokus på hur man som lärare kan gå tillväga för att utveckla elevernas lärande inom språk och kunskapsutveckling. Med hjälp av olika databaser blev vår kunskapsöversikt komplett, vilket hjälpt oss hitta forskning med hjälp av olika vetenskapliga artiklar och referensgranskade bokkapitel. Resultatet av kunskapsöversikten visar att både språk- och kunskapsutveckling inom samhällsorienterande ämnena förstärks när eleverna får arbeta med olika modeller och metoder i undervisningen. För att en sådan utveckling ska uppnås behövs en del reflektion och en genomtänkt didaktisk planering från läraren. Forskningen har synliggjort att språkutveckling gynnar både första- och andraspråkselever.

Syftet med denna kunskapsöversikt är att få en fördjupad kunskap i modersmålets betydelse för andraspråkselever när det gäller elevernas matematiska utveckling.    Frågan är om kooperativt lärande kan användas som metod för att stärka andraspråkselevers språkliga och matematiska utveckling i klassrummet. Med utgångspunkt i syfte och frågeställning har sökord/sökfraser tagits fram för att kunna göra en systematisk sökning efter relevant och aktuell forskning inom ämnesområdet.    Resultatet är uppdelat i två delar. Första delen tar upp kooperativt lärande i matematiken för att ge läsaren en inblick i hur metoden är uppbyggd. Andra delen går över till språkets betydelse i matematiken för andraspråkselever och vilka faktorer som är avgörande för elevernas språkliga och matematiska utveckling.    Slutsatsen är att andraspråkselevers språk och matematiska kunskaper kan stärkas med hjälp av kooperativt lärande. Detta under förutsättning att metoden utförs på ett strukturerat sätt, att språkliga verktyg utformas samt lärare som är införstådda med och har kunskap om hur kooperativt lärande som metod kan användas i klassrummet.

This dissertation seeks to investigate language diversity in the classroom and ways in which this could be a resource for teachers. By looking specifically at the experience of learning English as a third language, it aims to establish what if any differences exist between L2 and L3 learners. By first looking at the overall attitudes to learning English with the use of a survey, I hoped to identify any differences between these two groups of learners. Based on these results, focus groups were used to find out what strategies were employed and how ability, motivation and personality affected these learners. The results show that whilst there is a tendency for L3 learners to be more aware of their individual language development than L2 learners, we cannot generalize. All students are motivated by travel, as this is seen as an opportunity to communicate with other nationalities. It would appear that L3 learners have greater access to travel since they often have relatives in different countries. This study also showed that students are not used to reflecting on their learning and this is something that we, as teachers should encourage in order to help students find appropriate strategies that work for them. Finally, this study showed that all students could benefit from a move away from a contrastive Swedish/English environment to a more inclusive study of language typology in general.

This is a qualitative research that draws Gee‟s Discourse analysis to understand how learners communicate their mathematical reasoning in a multilingual classroom in South Africa. The study involved a Grade 11 class of 25 learners in a township school East of Johannesburg. The research method used was a case study. Data was collected using classroom observations, and document analysis. The study has shown that learners communicate their mathematics reasoning up to a certain level. The way learners communicated their mathematical reasoning depended on the activities that were given by the textbook being used in the classroom, and the questions which the teacher asked during the lessons. From the findings of the study, recommendations were made: the assessment of how learners communicate their mathematical reasoning should have a basis, say the curriculum. If the curriculum states the level of mathematical reasoning which the learners at Grade 11 must reach, then the teacher will have to probe the learners for higher reasoning; mathematics classroom textbooks should be designed to enable learners communicate their mathematical reasoning. The teacher should ask learners questions that require learners to communicate their mathematical reasoning.

Utifrån ett sociokulturellt perspektiv lär och utvecklas människan i en social samvaro där interaktion sker mellan deltagarna. Syftet med denna studie är därmed att utifrån ett sociokulturellt perspektiv undersöka verksamma lärares uppfattningar om grupparbete som syftar till att skapa utrymme för muntlig interaktion i det flerspråkiga klassrummet och genom observationer analysera hur detta kommer till uttryck i klassrumspraktiken. För att besvara detta syfte används följande frågeställningar Hur beskriver verksamma lärare att de organiserar grupparbeten som syftar till att skapa utrymme för muntlig interaktion i det flerspråkiga klassrummet? Hur kommer lärarnas intentioner om grupparbete till uttryck i klassrumspraktiken? Forskningsdesignen utgörs av en flerfallstudie där två olika fall ingår. I undersökningen ingår åtta elever från två olika parallellklasser i årskurs 3 och deras fyra undervisande lärare. Insamlandet av data har skett genom intervjuer med lärarna och observationer i respektive fall.   Resultatet visar att lärarna har som avsikt att vid organisering av grupparbete skapa utrymme för muntlig interaktion i det flerspråkiga klassrummet. Vid observationerna är muntlig interaktion dock frånvarande och framkommer vid fåtal sekvenser. Lärarna beskriver att deras uppgift är att stötta eleverna under arbetets gång samt ge eleverna tydliga instruktioner innan arbetet påbörjas. Resultatet visar att i de fall som lärarna gav eleverna tydliga instruktioner om hur arbetsuppgifter kan fördelas i gruppen var samtliga elever delaktiga. I de fall som läraren inte gav eleverna instruktioner om hur arbetsuppgifterna kan fördelas var inte alla elever delaktiga. Studiens resultat visar även att om eleverna ska ges optimala förutsättningar för muntlig interaktion ska läraren gruppera eleverna i grupper om tre till fyra elever där elevernas språkliga bakgrunder varierar. / From a socio-cultural perspective, learn and evolve human when they being in a social interaction where the interaction takes place between the participants. The purpose of this study is therefore from a socio-cultural perspective examine active teachers ' perceptions about group work intended to create space for oral interaction in the multilingual classroom and through observations analyze how this is reflected in classroom practice. To respond to this purpose, the following questions are How do active teachers describe the organizing of group work which aimed to create space for oral interaction in the multilingual classroom?  How will teacher’s intentions about group work reflect in classroom practice? The research design consists of a multi- case study where two different cases are included. The survey includes eight pupils from two different parallel classes in grade 3 and their four teaching teachers. The collection of data has been done through interviews with the teachers and the observations in each case.   The results show that the teachers intend to group work to create space for oral interaction in the multilingual classroom. However, in the observations, oral interaction is absent and appears in few sequences. The Teachers describe their mission is to support the students during the course of work as well as provide students with clear instructions before starting work. The results show that in the case that teachers gave students clear instructions about how tasks can be distributed in the group, were all students involved. In the case that the teacher did not give the students instructions on how the tasks can be distributed was not all students involved. The results of the study also show that if students are to be given optimal conditions for oral interaction, the teacher will group students into groups of three to four students where students’ linguistic backgrounds vary.

This is a qualitative research that draws on Fairclough’s Critical Discourse Analysis methodology to analyze the discourse practices of the mathematics teacher educators in initial teacher training colleges in Malawi. The study involved four mathematics teacher educators in two teacher training colleges located in two different regions of Malawi. Specifically the study explored the following questions: 1) What are the discourse practices that mathematics teacher educators display in their descriptions of multilingual mathematics classrooms? 2) a) What are the discourse practices that mathematics teacher educators display in a college mathematics classroom? b) How do they make available the discourse practices for the student teachers to draw on? Data was collected through pre-observation interviews, classroom observations, reflective interviews and focus group discussions with the mathematics teacher educators. This study has shown that while there are some disconnections between the discourse practices produced in a school multilingual mathematics classroom and a college mathematics classroom, some of the discourse practices that mathematics teachers produced in a college mathematics classroom reinforces the common discourse practices being produced in multilingual mathematics classroom. There are three common discourse practices that were displayed in a college mathematics classroom. These discourse practices are: Initial-Response-Evaluation (Pimm, 1987), traditional lecturing and group discussions. I observed that the IRE and traditional lecturing discourse practices were accompanied by directive discourses for procedural control, and the procedural discourse was the prevalent discourse in all the discourse practices produced. iv Three major themes have emerged from the data analysis. Firstly, the research findings indicate that the mathematics teacher educators regard multilingualism and the language practices that come with it such as code-switching more as a problem rather than a resource for teaching and learning. Secondly, code-switching in college mathematics classroom is not as spontaneous as is research shows it to be in schools; rather it is very much controlled and restricted. Thirdly, the dilemmas of code-switching as discussed by Adler (1998, 2001) are more acute in teacher training colleges, mainly because of the mismatch in the Language-in-Education Policy (LiEP) in schools and tertiary level.

Philosophiae Doctor - PhD / It has been noted by Lin (2013) that studies on multilingual talk, as illustrated by code switching in the classroom, have been repetitive and descriptive, and have for a while not been underpinned by substantially new or different questions (Lin, 2013:15). First, many of the studies in the literature have, for instance, concluded that there is a functional allocation of languages (FAL) in multilingual classroom teacher talk (e.g. Baker, 2012; Martin, 1996; Probyn, 2006, 2014; Jegede, 2012; Modupeola, 2013; Salami, 2008), such that language „a‟ is used for presentational knowledge, and language „b‟ is used for explanatory knowledge, and these claims have not been subjected to sustained scrutiny. Secondly, codeswitching and translanguaging increasingly have been the dominant and exclusive frameworks used, and this has limited the kinds of insights that can be obtained or the kinds of questions that can be posed. Thirdly, where the effects of multilingual teacher talk on students‟ understanding or knowledge are at all captured in studies, such effects have either been based on researcher intuition or have not been the object of sustained empirical demonstration. Fourthly, many studies have assumed merely that it is the configuration of languages that produces claimed effects of multilingual teacher talk, and attention has hardly been paid to repetition of content or to knowledge structure. Fifthly, it is not often the case that studies or findings are presented in a nuanced form that takes into account the possible effect of different subject types, school types or levels of study. Sixthly, and overall, many studies making claims on the effect of teacher‟s code-switching or trans-languaging on students‟ knowledge do not theoretically engage with knowledge, beyond the distinction between presentational and explanatory forms of knowledge, thus illustrating what Maton (2013) regards as “knowledge-blindness” (that is, the paradox of limited engagement with knowledge structures in pedagogical research making knowledge claims). As a result, little is known about how specific units of knowledge are encoded according to categories in a theory of knowledge, how knowledge encodings interface with languages, and how composite knowledge structures-language profiles can be visualised. This study draws on Legitimation Code Theory Semantic and Terminology Theory in order to investigate the interface of language and knowledge in multilingual teacher-talk in science and business studies classrooms in Yola, North-Eastern Nigeria. This focus should make it possible to answer questions such as the following which, though important, have not often been posed on account of the limited engagement in the research on classroom multilingualism with theories of knowledge: a) to what extent is it appropriate to claim that there is a functional allocation of language in multilingual teacher-talk (in which language „a‟ is used for so-called presentational knowledge, and language „b‟ for explanatory knowledge)?; b) what kinds of encodings of knowledge occur in a set of science and business studies lessons?; c) given documented visual patterns of knowledge dynamics emerging from recent research in the sociology of knowledge (e.g. semantic waves, semantic flatlines both high and low, downward shift and upward shift), (Maton: 2013, 2014a, 2014b), what knowledge profiles are observable and how does language use in multilingual teacher-talk map onto these patterns?; d) how are any observed differences in the composite knowledge-language profiles to be explained?; and e) what effects do various language-knowledge profiles have on students‟ understanding of the lesson and on their demonstration of their knowledge? Data for the study was derived from transcripts of audio-recorded multilingual teacher-talk in two subjects (integrated science and business studies) as taught in grades seven and nine in four secondary schools (two private and two public schools) in Yola, North-East Nigeria. Findings show, among others, that it is not always the case that the official classroom language (English) is used for introductory discourses, and the non-official classroom languages are used for explanatory discourses. Findings further reveal that it is not primarily the functional allocation of languages that explains perceptions or empirical claims of enhanced student understanding. We also observed that the number of content iterations, combined with knowledge structures, is an important factor that enhances or explains the performance of students. While this research has paid a lot of attention to teacher talk in the classrooms in two sites in Yola, North-East, Nigeria, where the use of Hausa and Fulfulde languages by the students is mainly in the spoken form, it would be interesting for future research to replicate this type of study in an environment where the non-official language of the classroom is perhaps used more frequently in reading and writing.

Achieving equitable opportunities to learn has been recognized as an important issue in multilingual content classrooms. However, partially because mathematics is conceptualized as a language-free subject, there is limited research examining linguistic minority students’ opportunities to learn in mathematics classrooms. The purpose of this research is to identify linguistic minority students’ opportunities to learn in mathematics classrooms in a Canadian multilingual urban elementary school, where English was the main instructional language. Drawing on cultural historical activity theory, this study focuses on two aspects of learning: externalization, which emphasizes learners’ creation of new cultural artifacts and new contexts to apply the given artifacts, and internalization, which emphasizes learners’ acquisition of preexisting cultural artifacts. In this ethnographic study, I examined the activity systems of participatory action research (PAR) with the activity system of regular mathematics lessons. Within these activity systems, I focused on newly-arrived English language learners’ (ELLs) participation. Specifically, I examined the range of opportunities to learn afforded to students in the two activity systems and identified how focal ELLs accessed these opportunities to learn. In the activity system of PAR, which emphasized externalization, students conducted research and presented their conclusions in order to implement changes in their school environment. All students, however, did not participate equally. Specifically, the focal ELLs were not able to access these opportunities to learn as a result of group dynamics, marginalized social identities, and other students’ perceptions of their linguistic ability. In the activity system of regular mathematics lessons, which emphasized internalization, the teacher organized lessons in ways that allowed focal ELLs to receive extra support and resources to reach the curriculum expectations. These mathematics lessons allowed focal ELLs to increase their participation through mathematical reasoning, problem solving, and explanations with a variety of resources including visual representations. A critical examination of the interactions revealed that focal ELLs’ opportunities to learn were expanded or limited depending upon classroom configurations. Furthermore, this research suggests that students’ social identities serve as both a medium and a product of learning. These results have valuable implications for developing inclusive classroom practices and curriculum in multilingual content classrooms.