Austrian Data Analysis of the Questionnaire for Teacher Trainers

1. Three mathematics teacher trainers have answered the questionnaire.
2. Two of them speak, write and read English; one speaks French; one speaks Italian.
3. Two of them speak, write and read English; one speaks French; one speaks Italian.
4. They are all lower and upper secondary school teacher trainers.

5. One trainer has thought of teaching mathematics in a foreign language.
6. None has attended or taught a course.
7. No co-operation.
8. All three know about European schools, two know about bilingual schools for minorities.

9. Two think it might be useful for better explaining, one for a better understanding of the role of language in mathematics teaching.
10. As main advantage, teacher mobility has been named by two trainers, as well as expansion of personal horizon.
11. Two trainers mentioned difficulty to understand the problems that students might have with the subject.
12. All three trainers think it to be possible to teach mathematics in a foreign language, providing the teacher (and obviously the students) have enough knowledge of the language to allow for the language not to become an obstacle.
13. No trainer had a conclusive answer to this question, as they have no experience with it. One thinks that it might be good to get concepts explained in two languages, as the students might get a better insight into the subject.
14. All of the trainers think it would be useful for pupils’ knowledge of a foreign language to learn mathematics in this foreign language, as it would provide an additional context for the language learning.
15. The topics that can ideally be taught in a foreign language would be: text equations, function graphs, Pythagorean theorem

16. Two trainers taught teacher students together with a colleague from the science department. No cooperation with language colleagues has been done yet.
17. All trainers believe that mathematics teachers can profit from teaching in a foreign language. They have to think more closely to their speaking in the lesson (2 trainers), and can read special mathematics (education) literature in the foreign language (1 trainer).
18. All three trainers think that language teachers would profit also, mainly because of the enrichment of the context for language learning (2 trainers), and of the interdisciplinary aspect (1 trainer).
19. All the trainers believe that it would be useful for professional development, because of the increased possibility of mobility (3 trainers), and the reading of literature in the foreign language (1 trainer).
20. Two trainers mentioned that the answer to that question depends very much on what teaching methods the teachers use now. The third trainer thought that teachers already have to think very careful about their language in teaching, so a change in methodology is not necessarily required.