Students' attitude towards Mathematics seems to be an important factor essential for consideration in the teaching and learning of Mathematics. Hence, finding ways to improve students’ attitudes is ...imperative. To this end, this study investigated the effects of mother tongue as a supplementary medium of instruction on Secondary School Students’ attitude towards Mathematics in Ekiti State, Nigeria. The purpose was to examine the effectiveness of the mother tongue as a supplementary medium of instruction as it affects students' attitude towards Mathematics. The study adopted a quasi-experimental research design. The sample for the study consisted of 194 Junior Secondary School class one students selected from three secondary schools in Ekiti State through multistage sampling technique. A validated instrument tagged SAQM with a reliability coefficient of 0.85 was used for data collection. Results from the findings revealed a significant difference between the attitude of students exposed to mother tongue as a supplementary medium of instruction and those not so exposed. It was concluded that the use of the mother tongue as a supplementary medium of instruction is an effective tool through which students' attitude can be improved. It was recommended that teachers try as much as possible to incorporate the learners’ mother tongue during classroom interactions to enhance productivity in the learners.
The sociocultural perspective maintains the view of understanding literacy as a social and cultural practice to describe reading and writing in multiple and evolving language activities. It means ...that literacy development is related to actions and beliefs which a student creates to define him or herself in particular cultural settings or circumstances. These circumstances further describe what resourceful individuals like teachers would offer or create in terms of language tasks or events to help students be identified as readers and writers. This qualitative study aimed at gaining deeper insights into teachers’ pedagogical practices to support functional literacy through mother tongue languages. Based on in-depth interviews, focus group discussions and classroom observations, this phenomenological study examined literacy instructional practices which offer a pedagogically grounded and positive learning environment where teachers use mother tongue as a medium of instruction to support learners’ early literacy acquisition processes. Thus, the study provides substantial findings which depict the role of children’s previous language experiences and teachers’ constructive classroom engagements as a basis for functional literacy development.
The purpose of this study is to describe the preservation of the mother tongue in the family sphere in the Bugis community in the Karimunjawa Islands. This research used a descriptive qualitative ...method. Data were collected using observation and unstructured interviews. Data analysis used Miles and Huberman's theory, the sociolinguistic approach related to preservation, and the language shift by Spolsky and Schiffman. The results of the analysis are presented descriptively. The results of this study indicate the role of the head of the family in regulating the pattern of selection and preservation of the mother tongue in the family of the Bugis ethnic community in the Karimunjawa Islands region. There is a slight difference between ideological patterns related to the process of language preservation in families in young families and non-young families. Young families are more flexible in intervening in the linguistic ideology of their children, while non-young families appear to have strong interventions. The multilingual Bugis community still exists and practices its language and maintains Bugis to communicate in the sphere of daily life, despite being able to use Javanese and Indonesian. Tradition and culture are also important supports for language maintenance in the Bugis community in Karimunjawa.
This study investigates the history, proponents, constituting elements, challenges, methodology, and future directions of Mother-tongue Biblical Hermeneutics (MTBH) as an emerging hermeneutical ...approach in African biblical studies. It observes that the translation of the Bible into African mother -tongues has influenced the emergence of MTBH. Based on this observation it posits that MTBH will continue to dominate Ghanaian biblical studies in the years ahead as the Bible gets translated into many more Ghanaian languages. After an overview of African biblical studies, the study establishes a correlation between the production of mother-tongue Bibles and the emergence of MTBH. It charts the course of MTBH by looking at its Ghanaian pioneers. Through an analytic assessment of selected works of currently established practitioners of MTBH, the study presents the constituting elements, challenges, methodology, and future directions of the approach. Moreover, it presents some selected institutions in which MTBH is practised and its practical results. The study finds that a dominant focus of MTBH has been resolving translation-related problems using advanced exegetical and hermeneutical tools. Consequently, less has been done in the area of mother-tongue Bible commentaries and innovative and creative mother-tongue hermeneutical reflections. Keywords: Mother-tongue Biblical Hermeneutics, African Biblical Studies, Mother-tongue Bibles, African Christianity, Ghanaian Biblical Studies
The idea of teaching/learning additional languages is a highly context-sensitive one, if only because it hinges crucially on what constitutes one’s ‘mother tongue’. The idea of mother tongue may seem ...too obvious to need any further comment; but in societally multilingual settings, it is far too slippery to be of any use as a theoretical term. In such societies, which routinely use more than one language for their day-to-day transactions, ordinal ranking of the languages involved as first (mother tongue?), second and so forth is often anybody’s guess. The issue is further complicated by the practice of translanguaging, which is becoming more and more common and whose full implications we are only just beginning to get to grips with (MAKONI; PENNYCOOK, 2007; OTHEGUY et.al., 2015; RAJAGOPALAN, 2022). On the other hand, the topic at hand is a hot one in many supposedly monolingual situations where decisions made to introduce additional languages bring with them all sorts of major policy implications and pedagogical challenges, over and above the highly sensitive popular reactions and long-standing prejudices that they often ignite. I shall try to focus on these political sensitivities relating to the topic, seeking to drive home the point that those in charge of overseeing these acts of important educational decision-making should be guided by long-ranging consequences for the collectivity as a whole, rather than that of meeting local or passing aspirations of certain sectors of the population, no matter how sensible they might seem at first glimpse. Needless to say, such discussions will have a direct bearing on what happens in the classroom, which is where these policies are put to the ultimate test as to their viability and their capacity to bear fruit.
In the attempt to creatively bring the complex multi-religious (Judeo-Christian) scripture to bear on both the contemporary global and local Christian communities, a formulation of a relevant ...hermeneutical method becomes imperative. The reason is that in a globalised world, there is a tendency for a dominant culture to designate the interpretative approach that comes from a minor culture as only “contextually” relevant. The question that comes to mind is: Could there be an academic reflection in the interpretative process that is faithful to both the global and local contexts? This paper demonstrates the quest for such a relevant hermeneutical approach that could also be used to re-read biblical texts by introducing mother-tongue theological hermeneutics. This approach, understood and utilized, would therefore serve as a hermeneutical approach that bridges the gap between global and local perspectives on a biblical text. Keywords: Mother-tongue, theological hermeneutics, Glocal, Scripture
This study reports on the implementation of mother tongue education in linguistically diverse contexts (LDC), or locations where a number of mother tongues (MT) are spoken. In 2012, the Government of ...the Philippines implemented a Mother Tongue-based Multilingual Education program for the first 4 years of schooling (K-3). The Philippine Department of Education proposed two program models to assist schools to cater for linguistic diversity: a ‘multiple monolingual’ model, which groups students with the same MT in separate monolingual classes, and a ‘lingua franca’ model, which adopts a widely used language as medium of instruction in all classes. Three years into the program, a nationwide survey including 50 schools in LDC was conducted to identify challenges that teachers faced and strategies in program implementation. Responses to the survey described modifications of the Department-proposed models, illustrating how educators embraced the multi-layered character of linguistic diversity through context-driven program strategies. Results also identified program areas for which schools need additional support, such as the organization and teaching of classes in which a range of MTs is spoken. The adopted strategies demonstrate a localized realization of a national policy and provide policy-makers and implementers with a range of classroom realities and possible options for improving educational outcomes for students in complex and dynamic multilingual settings.
The article aims at illustrating the linguistic situation of national minorities and ethnic groups in independent Ukraine. It describes the historical context in which minority groups in Ukraine were ...formed, as well as the main language identity issues that Ukraine had to face before and after 1991. The socio-political dynamics in which minorities lived in the first decades after 1991 are described. The main part outlines the situation of major minorities, provides data concerning the variation of specific groups and underlines how these numerical fluctuations have affected the linguistic situation of the country. The article takes into consideration statistical data, scientific articles and monographs on the subject, as well as publications in the mass media.
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