Approaches That Leverage Home Language in Multilingual Classrooms

Internationally, concerns remain that approaches that leverage home languages teaching in ways that provide epistemic access remain elusive. In South Africa, the research base has been critiqued for tending to focus on either language issues or epistemic access rather than bringing these two foci together in practical and pragmatic ways for teachers. Our focus in this chapter is on exemplifying differences between two approaches to working in early grades’ mathematics classes in multilingual contexts. The first approach, using translation has a long-associated literature base in substitution/code-switching. The second, and more recent approach, uses what has been described as ‘translanguaging’ and involves a wide range of multiple discursive practices in spatial, visual and spoken modes. In the chapter, we present and discuss the two approaches, and use grounded analysis of empirical excerpts to point to key differences between translation and translanguaging, and subtle differences within the categories dependent on how mathematical representations are traversed. This analysis leads us to suggest that the latter is the better approach compared to substitution of words and or phrases in multilingual mathematical contexts where the various registers associated with mathematical representation can also be considered as important parts of moving between languages. The analysis provides insights into how translanguaging, as an approach, allows languages to be treated as resources for learning in the early primary grades. Recommendations are made for policy makers and teacher education practitioners to ensure that mathematics teachers in the early grades have resources and skills needed to effectively teach mathematics through the medium of African languages.