Teaching and Learning Mathematics in Multilingual Classrooms (PDF)

Contemporary concerns in mathematics education
recognize that in the increasingly technological and globalized world, with
concomitant change in population demographics (e.g. immigration, urbanization)
and a change in the status of languages (e.g. English as a dominant language of
science and technology) multilingualism in classrooms is a norm rather than an
exception. Shifts in perspective also view language not simply as an instrument
for cognition with all learners equipped with this instrument in service of
learning, although clearly in the classroom that remains of importance. Rather,
it is now also being acknowledged that language use is inherently political, so
that the language that gets official recognition in the classroom is invariably
the language of the powerful elite, or the dominant societal language, or in
the case of post-colonial contexts the language of the colonisers. From this
socio-political role of language in learning quite different issues arise for
teaching, learning and curriculum for linguistically marginalized learners than
that of cognition (e.g. immigrants, second language learners, other).

Policies on language in education are being
considered and re-considered with specific reference to mathematics teaching
and learning. Given the policy environment, globally the proposed publication
is timely.

This edited collection draws on recent, emerging
insights and understandings about the approaches to improving policy and
practice in mathematics education and mathematics teacher education in
multilingual settings. It presents, and discusses critically, examples of work
from a range of contexts and uses these examples to draw out key issues for
research in education in language diverse settings including teaching,
learning, curriculum and fit these with appropriate policy and equity
approaches.

With contributions from all over the world,
especially novice researchers in low income countries, this book is a valuable
resource for courses in Mathematics Education and related social sciences both
at the graduate and undergraduate levels, as well as for students of
international development.