TITLE:
Rumanyo as a Medium of Instruction in Mathematics Grade 1 Classrooms: Kavango East Region Teachers’ Perspectives
AUTHORS:
Anna Frugintta S. Mangundu, Natalia Intja, Irmgard Moyo
KEYWORDS:
Grade 1, Kavango East Region, Mathematics, Mother Tongue, Perspectives, Rumanyo, Rundu and Ndiyona Circuit
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Access Library Journal,
Vol.10 No.10,
October
19,
2023
ABSTRACT: In multilingual postcolonial countries like Namibia, the medium of teaching is a critical problem in language education policy. Teachers have an important part in language policy implementation, and their beliefs have an impact on it. As a result, it is critical to investigate their attitudes towards language education policy and its implementation. The aim of this study was to examine the Rumanyo grade 1 teachers’ perspectives of teaching mathematics in Rumanyo and to establish the importance of teaching mathematics in the junior primary phase in the medium of Rumanyo as an indigenous language in Namibia. This study adopted the mixed method research design, and it is framed in the constructivist theory. The study was participated in by a sample size of ten teachers, five management members and three advisory teachers in Kavango east region (KER) who were purposively selected. Data was gathered using the focus group interview guide and a classroom observation checklist. Qualitative data were presented verbatim and in themes and a content analysis was used to analyse qualitative data, whereas quantitative data were presented in tables and graphs and used the descriptive analysis to analyse data. The findings of the study reveal that teachers have different perspectives of using mathematics as a medium of instruction to teach mathematics in the junior primary phase. The findings reveal that the use of Rumanyo as a mother tongue to teach mathematics in grade 1 is important because it promotes great communication flow between teachers and learners, it enhances mathematics vocabularies in the Rumanyo language. However, teaching mathematics in Rumanyo may also hinder the performance of some learners who were taught in the medium of English at the pre-primary level. Against these findings, the study proposes that another study should be conducted to establish the perspectives of student teachers who are being trained to teach mathematics in the junior primary phase in the medium of Rumanyo and identify the dependent and independent variables associated with the challenges and successes of teaching mathematics in the medium of mother tongue and develop a framework to ease the tension of mother tongue instruction of mathematics.