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This study aims to characterise the pedagogical practices of 45 observed primary mathematics lessons taught by 24 mathematics teachers in six national primary schools (SK) and six Chinese vernacular primary schools (SJKC). The data were collected using two video cameras, one focused on the teacher while the other camera focused on the pupils' activities. The qualitative data were analysed based on two main activities in the classroom, which are teacher's activities and pupils' activities. The findings show that mathematics lessons conducted by SK teachers tended to engage the pupils in individual seatwork so as to assess pupils' understanding. Conversely, SJKC teachers were focused more on explaining mathematical concepts to help the pupils build up their conceptual understanding. By characterising the pedagogical practices of mathematics lessons in various schools, the researcher hopes that the findings of this study will contribute to better understanding of the teaching and learning process in SK and SJKC mathematics classrooms. The results serve as a documentation of pedagogical practices in Malaysia to enable implementation of suitable programmes to help in improving teachers' pedagogical practices from different types of primary schools. While the results are interesting and provide some directions, a much larger study would be needed to determine if the results are due to the teachers' enthusiasm, geographical differences, cultural or social differences, or what is known as the Hawthorne Effect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]