The readings both pointed out some very real problems students face in the classroom in regards to literacy in mathematics. These problems were summarised very well in the second reading where 5 key areas were mentioned. I am not as interested in talking about the problems as I am about mentioning solutions to these problems.
After reading the two readings I felt that there were two ways a teacher can battle the problems faced with literacy in mathematics. Firstly the teacher can make sure that they are careful with the language they use in the classroom to provide greater clarity for the students. Second, the teacher could concentrate more on getting the students to a higher literacy level in regard to mathematics.
A good example comes from the second reading. Let’s take the two phrases, ‘25% of a price’ and ‘25% off a price.’ Both phrases have completely different answers but look and sound almost exactly the same. There are two things that we can do here. Firstly the teacher could ask the question and write it down underlining the word ‘of’ or ‘off.’ This is adopting the first method I mentioned. Alternatively if the teacher had been taking the second approach over the period of time the students had been with them a better result could occur. The students might approach the teacher and ask whether they meant ‘of’ or ‘off.’
I feel that teachers could give students work that requires them to think and discuss the language used in the classroom. They could hand out question sheets that have problems like the following:
Match the following question to the correct equation:
Susan has 2 apples and Aaron has 3 pears, how much fruit do they have altogether?
(a) 2 x 3 = 6
(b) 2 + 3 = 5
(c) 3 – 2 = 1
(d) 2 apples and 3 pears
Such questions like this used in math classrooms will have students not just practicing the language but talking about the language as well. This is what I feel is the problem. Students are only practicing using the language when they should be going a step further and talking about it as well.
As important as it is for teachers to be careful with the way they speak and write in the math classroom I feel greater emphasis should be put on training students to understand discussions and questions in the context it is given. This can be achieved by having students not just practice using the language but talking about it as well.
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March 11th, 2008 at 9:45 pm
Practicing and talking about language in the classroom is a great point. An example that took my fancy was the wording of decimals making 3.7 sound smaller that 3.26. Some activities in the classroom can help students relate the language to the meaning of the maths, opening up good potential for your ‘real life’ classroom activities.