Experiences of Grade nine learners in Learning Mathematics

South Africa is faced with constant poor standards in mathematics as a discipline. Mathematics teaching/learning is confronted with different challenges which need to be significantly addressed. One of the challenges is unqualified teachers who cannot teach mathematics effectively hence increasing poor results in mathematics education. This is evident in 2011 when South Africa participated in the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study. South Africa performed poorest among the 21 low developed countries. Further, this was illustrated in private additional mathematics tutoring which was created to address the poor methods of teaching in government school. According to Van der Walt, Marcee and Ellis (2008), urge that researchers point out the several South African Learners' are uncertain about the mathematics content matter. South African learners' face challenges with the practical mathematics language. Mathematics as a discipline has got own its languages (terminologies, theories, concepts and symbols). It very significant for learners to clearly understand the language of mathematics hence helping them to improve their performance.