Learning Fractions Through Two Languages in an Elementary Classroom: The Interrelation of Maltese and English with the Mathematics Register(s)

Abstract

In many mathematics classrooms in Malta, both English and Maltese are used for verbal interaction during the teaching/learning process. This is because Maltese is generally the students and teachers’ home language, whereas English is the assumed academic language for mathematics. Believing that the academic language of a subject should be taught explicitly I carried out a teaching experience to support Maltese children to make periodic shifts from using oral informal Maltese, or a mix of Maltese and English, to expressing mathematical ideas through English. My theoretical assumption was that learning mathematics constitutes the appropriation of a discourse, and my focus was the development of the spoken mathematics register. The children were 8 to 9-year olds and the topic was Fractions. In my analysis of the classroom data I drew on Prediger, Clarkson and Bose who distinguish between everyday, school and technical mathematics registers and I explore how Maltese and English interrelated with these registers. I conclude that Maltese and English – used separately or together as an integrated system –fulfilled specific functions in terms in relation to the registers. Hence I offer a particular example of the pedagogic application of translanguaging to the Maltese context.