A Glance into Interactions in Some South African Township Mathematics Classrooms

Abstract

This paper examines the classroom interactions between teachers and students in some secondary mathematics classrooms in South Africa. Cases of twelve lessons of eight teachers were analyzed using the Secondary Teaching Analysis Matrix framework of Gallagher and Parker (1995) to classify teaching into didactic, transitional and conceptual teaching about classroom interactions. Classroom interactions were found to be predominantly didactic. This means among other things that there was little student interaction about the subject matter; short answers predominated; there were few student questions and student-student interaction was rare. The findings will be used for professional development intervention programs to guide teachers to improve dialogue during mathematics instruction.

DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2013.v4n13p435