Language and students' conceptions of logic in undergraduate mathematics

Issues of learning mathematics through a foreign language have been discussed by many researchers, however, the focus has mostly been on primary and secondary schools and not university. This poster presents findings from a study that focused on university and investigated undergraduate students' meanings for mathematical terms used in logic. The sample was 89 second year university students that had studied the topic of logic in mathematics in Malawi where English is the language of instruction but not the students' mother tongue. The students were asked to write down what they understood by a list of mathematical statements such as: if and only if, implies, and, or, and not. Findings suggest that even at undergraduate level, the mother tongue influences students' conceptions of mathematical terms. The poster presents some examples of students' responses and discusses possible reasons for the responses in relation to the mother tongue. Furthermore, the poster discusses some implications for teaching logic specifically and teaching mathematics in general, to undergraduate students' learning mathematics in English as foreign language.