Multilingual Narrative Retelling and Mathematical Abilities
Are Multilingual Children’s Narrative Retelling and Mathematical Abilities Based on Task-Specific Cognitive-Linguistic Abilities? Pedagogical Implications for Maths and Language Education in Primary Schools in India
Lina Mukhopadhyay, Vasim Tamboli, Minati Panda, Shalini Yadav and Ianthi Maria Tsimpli
Exploring Interactions Between Linguistic Theories, Language Learning and Pedagogy, page 341-373, Edited by Minati Panda, Suneeta Mishra and Judit Baranyiné Kóczy, 2025
Abstract
Multilingual learners across the globe have been studied to understand how knowing more than one language can influence their school performance. Language and mathematics skills are fundamental to a learner’s academic progress in primary education. When multilingual learners from low SES, and migrant families have to navigate through these school skills through a medium of instruction that does not overlap with their home language, they are likely to face challenges in language comprehension and in solving literacy, and mathematics tasks. In this chapter, we first present the theoretical basis for the development of language and mathematics skills in primary schooling, followed by a brief report on 8 to 11-year-old Indian multilingual learners’ performance on narrative retelling and mathematics tasks to understand the demands of linguistic and cognitive resources on these tasks that the children are able to access. Lastly, with an empirical understanding of multilingual learners’ performance in oral production and mathematics skills in the medium of instruction, we suggest a few comprehension and cognitive skills-building pedagogical practices for teachers who work in low-cost government schools in India. The suggestions would help raise teacher awareness about the importance of developing cognitive-linguistic abilities that can be harnessed across subjects to help learners gain academic proficiency and problem-solving and reasoning abilities in an interdisciplinary manner.