What comes before? Understanding spatial reference in Iwaidja

This paper reports on initial findings of an investigation into spatial frame of reference in Iwaidja, an Indigenous Australian language spoken in a multilingual community. It considers spatial language in mathematics where students are being taught and assessed in a language not spoken at home and where their teachers do not speak the students` first languages. It finds that Iwaidja speakers use different frames of reference to English speakers in small scale space. The meanings and scope of key spatial terms in Iwaidja differ from English in ways that appear to be related to preferred frames of reference. It proposes that teacher awareness of these differences can help in mathematics teaching.