Is formal language proficiency in the home language required to profit from a bilingual teaching intervention in mathematics? A mixed methods study on fostering multilingual students’ conceptual understanding

To what degree can multilingual students profit from bilingual teaching approaches, even when they lack experience in the academic or technical register in their home languages? This study explores this research question in a mixed methods design for a German/Turkish bilingual intervention aimed at fostering conceptual understanding of fractions (five sessions of 90 min each). The sample consisted of German/Turkish bilingual students (n = 128) in Grade 7 in German schools without prior formal mathematics education in Turkish. In a randomized control trial, the bilingual intervention was compared to the corresponding monolingual intervention and a control group. A repeated analysis of variance (ANOVA) showed that students in both interventions had significantly higher learning gains than in the control group, and in fact profited equally from both interventions, although some time and effort was required for overcoming initial barriers in the home language and especially in the academic register. A qualitative analysis of the videotaped bilingual learning processes revealed insights into specific obstacles and chances of connecting both languages in order to foster conceptual understanding. The students with some formal language proficiency in Turkish seemed to profit even more from the bilingual intervention, but a rigid technical register was not necessary.