This study examines how one teacher, Promise, handles the dares produced by her KwaZulu-Natal classroom's language of instruction. It employs Hill and Ball’s frame of ‘mathematics knowledge for teaching’. It is proposed that participants included pedagogic strategies in their classrooms to debate the dares emerging when learners acquired mathematics in a language other than their native language. This paper thinks about and reports Promise’s pedagogic strategies. Distinguishing pedagogic strategies that include the language of instruction in mathematics classrooms can be of value to mathematics curriculum developers and teachers. Keywords: Code switching, English, knowledge, language, manipulative, mathematics, mnemonics, pedagogic strategies