Newly arrived and second-generation immigrants encounter text-rich mathematical tasks in Swedish : difficulties, opportunities and resources from the perspective of eight multilingual students

A number of studies have found that pupils, both newly arrived and other pupils who speak Swedish as a second language, have difficulties with mathematical tasks that consist of a few or more lines of text. It often seems to be a matter of mainly linguistic problems that are related to word and reading comprehension, that is, understanding and interpretation of formal concepts and words in the second language. Multilingual pupils who have recently migrated to Sweden from their home countries, but also pupils with foreign backgrounds who have lived in Sweden for several years - or in some cases, their entire lives - show lack of recognition in terms of cultural and traditional contexts. This study examines the difficulties and possibilities that were created when eight different multilingual pupils were being presented with text-rich mathematical tasks (word problems), but also focuses on examining the resources used during said process where the pupils read, interpreted and tried to solve given tasks. As the study is based on qualitative research, semi-structured interviews were conducted. The basis of the interviews consists of six word problems with related questions where the students had to think, reason and reflect upon the language being used in the tasks as well as the content, context and mathematical problems presented. The study has a theoretical approach based in both the social semiotics and the Language as Resource-model, of which both have been used to analyze the empirical material obtained from the interviews. In social semiotics, meaning-making is explained as a social practice that is created through interaction with the surrounding social and cultural contexts. While gathering and analyzing material, the so called “semiotic resources” were thus being observed, that is, the resources being used to communicate, interpret and create meaning of, for example, in this case, mathematical word problems. The results indicate that multilingual pupils use a variety of resources such as code-switching, translanguaging, drawing pictures, marking numbers and more while working with word problems. In addition to this, they also utilize the interviewer/teacher as a resource to, for example, read out information to them, explain concepts and words they do not understand et cetera. Multilingual pupils thus create bridges in several dynamic ways to overcome their difficulties and rather turn them into possibilities