The aims of a study to teach mathematics in Mawng, an Australian Indigenous language, shifted from providing a foundation to enhance transferral to English to involving a language maintenance aspect. The study took place in a multilingual community. The roles of multiple Indigenous languages in a mathematics lesson are reported on. It is argued…

This paper examines spatial metaphors in the English language associated with the number line, in particular metaphors of direction and motion, and how these are manifested in actual spatial practices associated with number. It considers how these metaphors are culturally influenced, and how the influences of other cultures, such as Arabic,…

Effective mathematics teaching for Indigenous language speaking students, currently the lowest achieving group in Australia, needs to be based on fair expectations of both students and teachers. Teacher interviews in a small Northern Territory school, conducted within an ethnographic study, showed that teachers' decisions regarding level of…

Despite their significant contribution to Australian school life, there has been little research into migrant teachers in Australia. The few studies which are available report difficulties with cultural adaptation for migrant teachers in areas related to pedagogy, language, and classroom management. However, research in Australia has mainly…

With increasing pressures being placed on early childhood teachers to provide academic programs, many are turning away from programs that foster pretend play. This study examined two contrasting approaches to teaching preschool children and considered their effects on children's linguistic and social abilities. One of the teaching approaches…

A study in an early French partial immersion program in a Melbourne (Australia) elementary school investigated participating children's performance in mathematics in English (their first language) and French. Mathematics testing in both languages has been undertaken regularly as part of a long-term evaluation of the program. In the first year of…

Bilingual education programs and policies in three countries with sizable minorities, Sweden, Australia, and the Federal Republic of Germany, are examined in order to gauge both the extent to which children with limited proficiency in the dominant language are in integrated classrooms and the degree of their social integration. First, the…