The use of multiple languages when teaching mathematics in reception classes and adult education schools in Norway

Abstract

In a world where speaking multiple languages is the norm and where multitudes of cultures and ethnicities flourish, the society has gotten to a level where its normal to speak a language while living in another country. With the presence of an abundant number of languages, there arises a wide spectrum of skills within those languages. When these individual move to a new country their learning are heavily impacted by how schools and teaching institutions prepare them for the road after the introductory classes. It is the teacher’s role to prepare lessons and teach in ways that help achieve the best learning outcomes for those who know don’t know enough or are struggling with languages. To study the effect that the multitude of languages has on mathematics education in the Norwegian context it was needed to interview teachers from the different sectors in the education scene. The purpose of the interview is to staple an insight on what effects would mathematics teaching have on immigrant learners who have a first language other than Norwegian and whether their language can be capitalised upon and skilfully utilized to help them acquire the subject of mathematics in its depth. The research carried out through this paper was done on three multilingual teachers working with newly arrived individuals in Norway. One teacher working in adult education schools and two working in reception classes in two lower secondary schools in Oslo. The data gathered from those teachers was through semi-structured interviews in order to answer the following thesis question: What learning methods do mathematics teachers use with immigrant pupils in both reception and adult education classes with a first language other than Norwegian and can the students’ first language be utilized to help them better learn the subject. The purpose of the interviews is to find out the teachers’ methods the teachers use when teaching mathematics and how they would impellent the students’ first languages to help them learn mathematics better. What have been acquired is that these teachers have to make adaptations to the lesson planning and when teaching, they use more representations for better learning mainly visual representations. These teachers tend to depend on translations between the students’ first languages and Norwegian and lastly, they aim to build a proper subject-specific language in the subject using glossaries and definitions of terms. In the interviews, the teachers’ have also been asked about the challenges that they were met with. Those challenges can be comprised of time management, the resources available, class size and class composition and lastly what expectations they have to manage. The aim of this research paper is to find out and present what teaching methods some teachers in reception classes and adult education schools use with their students dependent on their linguistic needs and academic levels. This project wants to raise awareness of and reflect on the nature of some of the situations in these classes.