Identifying Mathematical Expression for Teaching and Learning Mathematics in Kriol

Many Indigenous Australians living in the Northern Territory speak a language other than English as their first language (Australian Bureau
of Statistics, 2021). Despite this, first language-based education for Indigenous Australian students is rare in the Northern Territory (Devlin
et al., 2017). This project aims to create a program for teaching mathematics to children at Numbulwar School in their first language – Kriol.
The study will be conducted in collaboration with Kriol-speaking Indigenous educators at Numbulwar School. It will involve first eliciting and
developing mathematical language in Kriol, and then designing and delivering lessons using this language. We aim to document
mathematical language in Kriol, develop how it can be used for teaching school mathematics, and discover to what extent the program is
beneficial for Indigenous Australian students and educators. The study will be a case study designed using a Participatory Action Research
methodology. We will develop, record, and analyse the project through collaborative iterations of planning, action, and reflection. It is
hoped that this project will have a positive effect on students’ engagement and learning, and will improve educators’ competency and selfesteem.
In addition to this, an improvement in students’ and educators’ attitudes towards their first language is expected. One of the
results of this study will be a resource for teaching mathematics in Kriol which will be able to be shared with the many other Kriol-speaking
communities in Australia. Furthermore, this study will contribute to linguistic typological research on mathematics in Indigenous Australian
languages.