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Language Practices of Trilingual Undergraduate Students Engaging with Mathematics in Kenya

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Language Practices of Trilingual Undergraduate Students Engaging with Mathematics in Kenya LANGUAGE PRACTICES OF TRILINGUAL UNDERGRADUATE STUDENTS ENGAGING WITH MATHEMATICS IN KENYA by EVELYN WANJIRU NJURAI Submitted in accordance with the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN MATHEMATICS, SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY EDUCATION in the subject MATHEMATICS EDUCATION at the UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH AFRICA SUPERVISOR: PROF. MAMOKGETHI PHAKENG 2015 DECLARATION i DEDICATION To My Daughter Rita Claudia Wambui My Parents Raphael. K Njurai (late) and Gladys Wambui Njurai ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I thank the Almighty God for giving me the opportunity, strength, guidance and grace to complete this PhD study. I thank my supervisor Professor Mamokgethi Phakeng for inspiring my thoughts, providing insights, unreserved guidance and counsel from the very beginning to the completion of this study. I have great appreciation for her support, critical and constructive comments and tolerance through the long walk to this end. Please accept my deepest gratitude. God bless you. I wish to thank the University of South Africa for financial assistance in conducting research and writing up this thesis. I would also like to convey my sincere gratitude to Mr Aaron Tshikotshi, the Librarian: College of Science, Engineering and Technology, for helping me to conduct literature searches in the library of the University of South Africa. I thank the administration and students of Procity University who participated in this study. They unreservedly gave of their precious time to facilitate my engagement with them. I‟m also grateful to Pricilla M. Wacera who ably assisted me with video coverage. I thank my family for the moral support that they have given me: my Dad Raphael K. Njurai (late) and Mum Gladys W. Njurai, for inculcating in me the importance of education; my siblings Njogu, Nyawira, and Muthoni, Mumbi, Wacira and Njoki and your families for your unwavering support during my studies. Most of all I thank my daughter Rita C. Wambui who was keen to know the progress I was making in my study. I hope you will be inspired to work hard in your studies. Finally, I appreciate the support of many other unnamed people who have contributed to the success of this work. iii ABSTRACT This study explored language practices of trilingual undergraduate students of mathematics as they made sense of an algebraic task. Specifically, the study set out to explore whether, how and why trilingual undergraduate students used language(s) to make sense of mathematics. In this study a trilingual speaker is viewed as an individual proficient in three languages and whose proficiency in the languages is not necessarily equal. The speaker uses the three languages either separately or by switching between any two in ways that are determined by his/her communication needs. Exploring language practices helped me to understand how students position themselves as they engage with a mathematics task using mathematical Discourses (capital D) in relation to their trilingual language facility. This facility involves the use of either the language of learning and teaching (LoLT) (English) or the switching between two or three of the languages they know. These languages were home languages, including Kiswahili of the students. In tertiary institutions, English is the LoLT while the home languages are neither taught nor used in the classroom. The study used a qualitative inquiry process, specifically a case study approach. It was conducted at a public university in Kenya with a focus on first-year engineering students with mathematics in their programme. Data were collected using a students‟ questionnaire, and clinical and reflective interviews. A structured questionnaire was used to gather the baseline data, which was used for the selection of 15 interview participants. The clinical interviews provided information on language use as the students engaged with the task, explaining each step of the process, while the aim of the reflective interviews was to identify, ascertain and confirm various actions and different languages and language practices that were iv not apparent during the clinical interview. The interviews were transcribed and 11 paired transcripts were selected for analysis. The data were analysed using the methods of Discourse analysis (Gee, 2005). This analysis explored how students used language in tandem with non-language “stuff” in a single language or when switching between any two languages and how and why each was used. The focus was on the activities and identities they enacted through their interpretation of the given task and in part of the solution process. The findings revealed that when students engaged with mathematics, they drew on the LoLT only, or switched between the LoLT and their home languages or between the LoLT, home languages and Kiswahili. Those who switched did so when they were faced with interpretation challenges, when there was need to emphasise a point and due to habitual practices of switching. They commonly switched silently and communicated verbally in the LoLT. The purpose for code switching was to gain understanding of the task. On the other hand, a trilingual student is likely to remain in the LoLT because content has been taught and tasks presented in the LoLT. The key contribution of this study is its focus on the trilingual language context of undergraduate students of mathematics, an area that has not been researched up to now. Furthermore, this study has added to scholarly work in this discipline by establishing that code switching is not the preserve of students who are learning the LoLT; rather, it is a reality for trilingual students who are competent in the LoLT when they engage with mathematics. v KEYWORDS Trilingual, bilingual, multilingual, code switching, Discourse analysis, mathematical Discourses, first-year undergraduate students, language practices, learning and teaching, home language, first language, Kenya vi GLOSSARY OF TERMS Additional language refers to any language acquired in addition to a speaker‟s first or home language (see first and home language below). It is also referred to as a second language. Bilingual refers to an individual who acquires and is proficient in two languages (Grosjean, 1982, 1985). The proficiency in the two languages is not necessarily equal, but as dictated by the communication needs of the individual. Code switching is the alternative use of two or more languages in an utterance or conversation in a more or less deliberate way (Baker, 1993; Grosjean, 1982). Elsewhere, language switching has been used to mean the use of two or more languages during solitary and/or mental arithmetic computation (Moschkovich, 2005). In either case, the switch may involve a word, phrase, part of a sentence, a sentence or several sentences. Since this study concerns instances both of verbal conversations involving language switching and non-verbal language switching (including mental computations), I choose to use code switching to refer to all situations where students switch between languages in verbal conversations and/or in mental computation or thinking. First language refers to a language that a person acquires from birth (see e.g. Setati, 2002). Other terms used to mean the same include mother tongue, L1, vernacular and indigenous languages (see e.g. Clarkson, 2006; Cleghorn, Merrit & Abagi, 1989). In the context of this study, the first language is an African indigenous language. In the case of the trilingual students in this study, their first languages are identified. Related to first language is the home language. vii Home language: refers to the language commonly used at home and in the larger community. In some works it is also referred to as main language (e.g. Adler, 1998). A home language may be the first language of a speaker or it may be another acquired language. For example Kiswahili, the national language of Kenya, is a home language for some communities who do not share a first language. Related to home language is predominant language (see below). Multilingual refers to an individual who is proficient in more than two languages (see Chitera, 2009b; Setati, 2002). Multilingual classrooms are classrooms in which multiple languages are represented (Adler, 1998). National language is a language that represents the national identity of a country (Chitera, 2009b) and which is commonly used in public addresses and communication between different language speakers. For example, in Kenya, Kiswahili is the national language. It is also the language that unites the 42 different language communities. In some heterogeneous language communities, Kiswahili commonly emerges as the home language. Official language is a language that is given a unique legal status for communication in a country (Chitera, 2009b). It is the language that is used in all official communications of government business such as in education and commerce. In Kenya, English and Kiswahili serve as the official languages. Predominant language is the language that is used by the majority of people in the catchment area of a school. This is commonly the home language in such an environment. Students and learners are terms that are commonly used interchangeably. They are both used to refer to individuals enrolled for the purposes of learning in viii primary, secondary and tertiary institutions (see e.g. Adler, 1998). The term pupil is also used in most cases to refer to primary scholars. In this study I have used the terms students and learners interchangeably but the particular participants in this study are referred to as students. Trilingualism is the ability to speak three languages (Hoffmann, 2001; Ogechi, 2002). The speaker uses the languages according to his/her communication needs. Trilingual speaker is here described as an individual who acquires and is proficient in three languages (Hoffmann, 2001). The proficiency in the languages is not necessarily equal. Further the languages are not of equal importance to the trilingual person; his/her use of the languages depends on the speakers‟ communication needs. The main distinction between trilingual and bi/multilingual speakers is quantitative in nature, which is the number of languages involved.
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