The Role of Translanguaging in Teaching Mathematics at Adult Correctional Centre Classrooms in South Africa
Siphelele Mbatha 
Issue: Vol.5 No.6 Issue Article 3 pp.825-834
DOI: https://doi.org/10.38159/ehass.2024563 | Published online 4th June, 2024
© 2024 The Author(s). This is an open access article under the CCBY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
This paper sought to explore the use of the translanguaging strategy as the means for decolonising and advancing the teaching of mathematics procedural fluency. From the pragmatic epistemological stance, the study collected both qualitative and quantitative data from the group of fifty purposively sampled adult offenders. The intervention study inferred data from pre-tests, post-tests, and semi-structured interviews. The data, which was analysed using SPSS and the thematic analysis approach, through the conceptual framework of teaching adult offenders mathematics procedural fluency through the isiZulu-English translanguaging strategy, indicate that the use of the translanguaging strategy yields satisfactory performance in adult offenders’ mathematics procedural fluency. The study further discovered that the translanguaging strategy leads to the decolonization of the mathematics curriculum and the development of isiZulu and English languages in correctional centre classrooms. The researcher recommends the use of the translanguaging strategy and fluidity in the use of any repertoires in the teaching of mathematics procedural fluency, conceptual understanding, and factual knowledge within the context of correctional centre classrooms. The researcher further concludes that translanguaging is applicable, and resourceful in all mathematics educational contexts, and it leads to the decolonization of the mathematics curriculum for both children and adults, in all contexts. The paper contributed to the scholarship by exploring the mathematics learning, teaching and assessment processes and the role of translanguaging thereof in correctional centre classrooms.
Keywords: Translanguaging, Correctional Centre, Mathematics Classroom, Mathematics Procedural Fluency, Adult Offenders, Educationists
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Siphelele Mbatha is a Lecturer at the University of the Free State, South Africa. His research interests lie in the teaching and learning of isiZulu literacy in childhood and adult education, correctional adult early literacy and numeracy as well as adult education as the behaviour rehabilitation strategy in correctional centre facilities. His research advocates for the intellectualization of isiZulu as the Language of Learning and Teaching in childhood and in adult education spaces. He has published in national and international journals.
Mbatha, Siphelele. “The Role of Translanguaging in Teaching Mathematics at Adult Correctional Centre Classrooms in South Africa,” E-Journal of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences 5, no.6 (2024): 825-834. https://doi.org/10.38159/ehass.2024563
© 2024 The Author(s). Published and Maintained by Noyam Journals. This is an open access article under the CCBY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
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