Language across the curriculum: Impact of LoLT on learning and achievement in mathematics

This paper looks at issues related to language in education and its impact on learning and achievement in language diverse mathematics classrooms. The language(s) in education policy plays a significant role in decisions about language of learning and teaching (LoLT) as an organizing framework for education processes. Policies on LoLT can play a facilitative or a hindering role in enabling access to learning of quality. In post-colonial contexts such as those in Sub Saharan Africa, policymakers often introduce a global, post-colonial language such as English with perceived or real power and privilege, as the language of learning and teaching, ostensibly for distributive justice for all learners. There is a popular perception that learning in English will lead to learning the English language and the subject content encoded in that language. However, in classrooms with language diversity, English (or other global language) is not the first or second, often not even the third language for a majority of students and teachers. Consequently, students and in many cases, teachers also lack the basic competency in English, and such policies create a paradoxical effect as students, often from low socio-economic background, face the twin challenge of learning a language and the subject knowledge presented in that language (mathematics). Drawing on in-depth classroom-based studies from a range of contexts, this paper illustrates the issues in teaching, learning and assessment in classrooms of language diversity. It draws on significant experience and insights from low-income and middle-income contexts to recommend suitable languagesupportive education approaches including the development of a ‘language ladder’, aligned with UNESCO’s mother-tongue based multilingual education.