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International audience; This paper discusses the type of research lesson planned by mathematics teacher educators participating in a lesson study cycle. An earlier study found that mathematics teacher educators’ research questions were not clearly formulated and as a reason, their initial lesson plans for research lessons did not make student teachers’ learning visible. This follow up study analysed the lesson plans further before and after comments from knowledgeable others and looked into the type of lesson planned to be conducted, with the hypothesis that the type of lesson would determine the type of student teacher learning made visible. Data in form of lesson plans were collected from five teacher education colleges. Theory driven content analyses was used and Skemp’s (1976) categories of instrumental and relational teaching were the point of departure. The findings include that the initial lesson plans were mostly presenting instrumental type of lessons, but after comments from the knowledgeable others, the revised lesson plans were presenting a more relational type of lessons with student teachers’ learning more visible.

International audience

International audience; In this study, we examined whether the Malawian Initial Primary Teacher Education Programme develops teachers' mathematical knowledge for teaching [MKT]. We administered measures adapted from the Learning Mathematics for Teaching project to more than 1,700 pre-service teachers from eight colleges to measure their knowledge for teaching. Paired samples t-test using 725 pre-service teachers whose pre-test (M = .049, SD = .960) and post-test (M = .084, SD = 1.043) scores we have paired, showed no significant gains in knowledge overall (t(724) =-.808, p=.419), and in seven colleges individually. However, mathematical knowledge for teaching for pre-service teachers from college C2 had increased significantly (t(165) =-2.062, p = .041). While the results showed a significant correlation between pre-test and post-test (r = 0.544, p < 0.001), we fail to conclude based on the results that the initial teacher education improves mathematical knowledge for teaching.

International audience; Issues of learning mathematics through a foreign language have been discussed by many researchers, however, the focus has mostly been on primary and secondary schools and not university. This poster presents findings from a study that focused on university and investigated undergraduate students' meanings for mathematical terms used in logic. The sample was 89 second year university students that had studied the topic of logic in mathematics in Malawi where English is the language of instruction but not the students' mother tongue. The students were asked to write down what they understood by a list of mathematical statements such as: if and only if, implies, and, or, and not. Findings suggest that even at undergraduate level, the mother tongue influences students' conceptions of mathematical terms. The poster presents some examples of students' responses and discusses possible reasons for the responses in relation to the mother tongue. Furthermore, the poster discusses some implications for teaching logic specifically and teaching mathematics in general, to undergraduate students' learning mathematics in English as foreign language.

This article highlights how school science pedagogy can be reconceptualized to infuse environmental problem solving and social transformation into a rural community in Malawi. Historically, the environmental education curriculum in the country is teacher-driven and theoretically-oriented, thus offering limited references to the local communities. Through participatory action research, the science teaching and learning practices were reconceptualized to address local environmental challenges. In the process, learners became active agents in the local community to understand and address environmental challenges. By prioritizing environmental issues and concerns within the community through Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) tools, the learners facilitated their own learning activities and developed class-community action plans. The ability to take action towards reforestation was empowering to both the students and community members, as the collaborative project demonstrated a community’s ability to identify issues of concern, take action, and work towards the resolution of the issue to improve their environment.

The purpose of this study was to explore the teaching of mental mathematics in Malawi's lower primary schools. The Malawi government has included mental mathematics in the National Numeracy Program (NNP) curriculum for lower primary school learners. The aim is to provide learners with mental mathematical knowledge and skills that would provide a solid foundation for future mathematics study in primary schools. However, while the introduction of mental mathematics in lower primary schools appears to be a solution to improve learners’ performance in mathematics performance, more research is needed to determine how primary teachers teach mental mathematics. The purpose of this study was to explore how mathematics teachers plan, teach and view mental mathematics in Malawi primary schools. The sample was drawn from NNP pilot primary schools, particularly in lower primary schools (standards 1–4), where mental mathematics is introduced in the NNP curriculum. The study used the Mathematical Discourse in Instruction (MDI) framework and was directed by the key research question "How do teachers in primary schools piloting the NNP curriculum view mathematics?" This main research question was supported by the following three subquestions: (1). How do teachers plan mental mathematics?, (2). How do teachers teach mental mathematics?, and (3). what are the teachers' views on mental mathematics? The study included twelve teachers from three primary schools in Malawi's rural Eastern region. The study is qualitative research that used interviews with teachers, lesson observations, and document analysis (lesson plans) to collect data. The study findings show that including mental mathematics in the curriculum in lower primary schools is beneficial since it enhances learners' mathematics performance. It was established that teachers rely on teachers' guides and learners' workbooks for guidance on how to select the tasks and teach mental mathematics and that they have the autonomy to select and prepare their mental mathematics problems depending on the day's work. Based on the findings, the study indicates that mental mathematics may be a positive development because it helps learners build critical thinking abilities and number senses

In Malawi, the current performance of students in early-grade mathematics is low due to lack of focus on developing number concepts, as well as the reliance on rote learning in the existing OBE curriculum. To address these issues, a new curriculum has been introduced in 204 pilot schools, aiming to revise the mathematics curriculum for lower primary grades (Standards 1- 4). The revised curriculum focuses on teaching various calculation strategies within the core elements of numbers, operations, and relationships, with the goal of equipping students with a wider range of problem-solving skills and a deeper understanding of mathematical concepts. This study investigated how mathematics teachers teach calculation strategies in the new National Numeracy Curriculum. The research aimed to identify the calculation strategies taught, how teachers teach them, and their views on teaching of calculation strategies The following questions guided the study: 1) What calculation strategies do mathematics teachers teach in the NNP curriculum? 2) How do mathematics teachers teach calculation strategies in the NNP curriculum? 3) How do mathematics teachers view the teaching of calculation strategies in the NNP curriculum? The study used a mixed methods approach, employing the Mathematical Discourse of Instruction (MDI) analytical framework (Adler & Ronda, 2015) for data analysis. The findings indicated that mathematics teachers teach a diverse set of calculation strategies, including building up and breaking down, number lines, physical modeling, counting on and counting down, addition bubbles, estimation, number pyramid, doubling and halving, commutativity, completing 10s, rounding, and compensation. Teachers illustrated these strategies using examples and tasks, either selecting one question from workbooks as an example or formulating their own examples that involve multiple calculation strategies. The remaining tasks assigned to learners came from the workbooks. Teachers used various teaching aids such as workbooks, charts, tables, chalkboards, and physical models to demonstrate and explain the calculation strategies. They encouraged learner participation through whole-class discussions, group work, pair work, and individual work. Teachers emphasized the importance of naming, explaining, and justifying the chosen strategies and highlighted the contextual differences in applying calculation strategies to solve different types of questions. However, teachers perceived the allocated time for mathematics lessons as not enough and suggested either doubling the time or reducing the workload per page to facilitate more effective teaching and learning.

In Latin America, there is a considerable Indigenous population whose participation in the educational system has been systematically obstructed by the imposition of Spanish and Portuguese, the languages of the colonial powers. The historical process of Indigenous education was rooted in the colonial project assimilation. A recent move towards the acknowledgement of linguistic and cultural diversity has opened spaces for new discussions about education as a terrain for regaining and reclaiming a cultural identity. In this context, we examine challenges and possibilities for the development of Indigenous mathematics education in multilingual contexts, based on existing research carried out in Brazil, Peru, and Colombia. We consider the relationship between language policy and educational policy, as well as bilingualism and its implementation in relation to Indigenous education. We discuss the development of mathematical registers and language revitalization as central issues within the mathematics education of Indigenous people.

Introduction.- Challenges and opportunities for second language learners in undergraduate mathematics.- Mathematics in the hands of deaf learners and blind learners: visual-gestural-somatic means of doing and expressing.- Challenging deficit perspectives: student agency in multilingual mathematics classrooms.- Language diversity in mathematics teacher education: challenges across three countries.- Impact of differing grammatical structures in mathematics teaching and learning.- Addressing multi-language diversity in mathematics teacher education programs.- Language diversity and new media: issues of multimodality and performance.- Making use of multiple (non-shared) first languages: state and need of research and development in the European language context.- Purposefully relating multilingual registers - building theory and teaching strategies for bilingual learners based on an integration of three traditions.- Trends in mathematics education in multilingual contexts for indigenous population: experiences from Latin America.- Tensions in teaching mathematics in contexts of language diversity.- Research rationalities and the construction of the deficient multilingual mathematics learner.- Language diversity in research and its consequences.- Using ICTs to facilitate multilingual mathematics teaching and learning.- Mathematics teaching, language policy and the political role of language: perspectives from around the world.- Reflections.- Index.

It is our contention that research plays a role in creating and reifying the very concepts and notions that it seeks to study. Published research in multilingual mathematics education was reviewed to critically examine its underpinning rationality on: (a) how the learner is portrayed; (b) how mathematics education (teaching and learning) is portrayed; and (c) the notion of language as formulated in the texts. Two research trends were examined: large-scale studies on mathematics achievement and how they address multilingualism, and small-scale, classroom-based studies and their recommendations about practice. On the basis of this critical review we argue that research very often has a double effect of power. On the one hand it reifies categories of exclusion such as “multilingual learner” by documenting its existence. On the other hand, it provides methods and instruments to diminish the achievement gap and help the multilingual learner assimilate with the culture and language of the dominant group. We conclude that research rationality cannot be seen without a deeper questioning of the philosophical, ontological, and epistemological assumptions that underpin the traditional views of what constitutes mathematics and, by implication, mathematics education.