Shona Mathematical Instructional Practices in Bilingual Primary Schools in Zimbabwe

Abstract Many Zimbabwean mathematics classrooms have student populations from diverse cultural backgrounds who speak diverse Shona dialects. Most of the mathematics teaching is not related to the learners’ world or everyday experiences because it is taught in English, a second language for most of these learners. Teachers therefore play a fundamental role in making sure that learners in this bilingual setup understand the mathematical concepts being taught. The debate on whether English or indigenous languages are suitable for use in education is increasing. This paper explores possible instructional practices to assist bilingual learners. A qualitative approach was used to explore the instructional practices used by primary school teachers during the teaching and learning of mathematics in Zimbabwe. The findings indicated that teachers code-switched between English and Shona and also used examples from the learners’ environment. It was concluded that there was a possibility of using a bilingual model including Shona and English when teaching mathematics to bilingual learners. The idea is to create a caring, colourful, exciting, stimulating, and reflective environment as a way of engaging learners even if they are from diverse cultural and social backgrounds. The latter would also reduce marginalisation of bilingual learners.