QUESTION

1. QUESTION Is mathematics a universal language? NO

2. Challenges for English Learners:Some Cultural Considerations… • Formation of numbers varies from culture to culture. • Use of decimal point and comma vary from culture to culture. • Students have no experience with our measurement system. It is abstract to them. • Many students have not seen or worked with manipulatives. They may not take a lesson using manipulatives seriously.

3. Challenges for English Learners:Some Cultural Considerations… • Students learn math by rote memory. • Math curricula in English learners’ countries may be primarily calculation. • Word problems may not be introduced until much later (after third grade). • Estimating, rounding, and geometry arae not often taught as early in other cultures. • Mathematical terms do not always translate well. AND

4. Challenges for English Learners:Some Cultural Considerations… • Some ELLs use a different processes to arrive at answers. • Problem solving is not just language but a thought process. • Students from other cultures may be more concerned with getting the correct response than with the process. They may not be able to justify their answers. AND

5. Challenges for English Learners:Some Cultural Considerations… In some cultures mental math may be the norm. Students may not show work in addition, subtraction, multiplication and division, or they may show work in a different way. By Judie Haynes http://www.everythingesl.net/inservices/challenges_ells_content_area_l_65322.php

6. ACADEMIC AND SOCIAL LANGUAGE: Two Levels of Language

7. SOCIAL LANGUAGE • Is the day-to-day language needed to interact socially with other people. • Is used by ELLs when they are on the playground, in the cafeteria, on the school bus, at parties, and talking on the telephone. • Is usually context embedded. • Occurs in a meaningful social context. • Is not very demanding cognitively. • Is not specialized.

8. SOCIAL LANGUAGE Social language usually develops within six months to two years after arrival in the U.S.

9. Social Language:An example from a ninth grade English language learner (ELL) …I couldn’t make up my mind at first like who I’m going to take to the prom: Jessica, Barbara, Maribel or Luz. But I finally made up my mind. I’m going with Maribel. I asked her last week at lunch and she told me that she would definitely go with me. We already talked about how we’re going to get there. I told her that my godfather owns a limo company in the Bronx, and so we could easily get a limo for the night and go in style. Maribel told me she’s wearing blue, and I guess that’s my clue to make sure I buy her flowers for her hand that has some blue in it to go with her dress. You know how girls are about those things..

10. Academic Language Academic language refers to formal academiclearning. Academic language includes listening, speaking, reading, and writing about subject area content material.

11. Academic Language • This level of language learning is essential for students to succeed in school. • Students need time and support to become proficient in academic areas. • This usually takes from five to seven years.

12. Academic Language The Declaration of Independence of the Thirteen Colonies (In CONGRESS, July 4, 1776) The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America, When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

13. Academic Language We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. --That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.

14. English Language Learners and Math: Some Challenges to Consider…

15. Challenges • Mathematical Vocabulary • Mathematical Grammar • Mathematical Semantics • Mathematical Syntax

16. Mathematical Vocabulary Words that have different meanings in different contexts: TABLE

17. Mathematical Vocabulary • Math — A table is a set of data arranged in rows and columns to demonstrate a relationship (multiplication table). • Examples of other everyday words that have very specific meaning in mathematics: product, root, power, face, mean, prime, rise, run

18. Types of Mathematical Vocabulary Needed in the Classroom

19. Types of Mathematical Vocabulary Needed in the Classroom Adapted from Ernst-Slavit and Slavit, 2007

20. FACT Students must draw on ALL FOUR of the vocabulary types.

21. Problematic Words Commonly Used in Mathematics Classrooms and Textbooks • Words that express quantitative relationships: hardly, scarcely, most, many, less, least, higher, longer • Words that link phrases and sentences and express a logical relationship: if, because, unless, alike, same, opposite of, different from, exactly, not quite, whether, since

22. Mathematical Grammar FACT: There are language patterns and grammatical structures peculiar to mathematics: • The use of logical connectors (consequently, however) • The use of comparative structures (greater than, less than) • The use of prepositions (divided by; divided into; multiplied by)

23. Mathematical Semantics Three times a number is 2 more than 2 times the number. Find the number. A plane takes 6 hours to fly from San Francisco to New York, and 5 hours to return back. The airplane's airspeed is 550 miles per hour, from New York to San Francisco. The reason why it takes the airplane longer to go West than East is because of a wind with constant wind speed. What is the speed of wind.

24. Mathematical Semantics At the same moment, two trains leave Chicago and New York. They move towards each other with constant speeds. The train from Chicago is moving at a speed of 40 miles per hour, and the train from New York is moving at a speed of 60 miles per hour. The distance between Chicago and New York is 1000 miles. How long after their departure will they meet?

25. Mathematical Syntax Understanding a concept is more difficult when the concept consists of the relationship between two words: Two numbers, the sum of which is 1 Henry is as old as his cousin All numbers greater than X By what percent is 16 increased by to make 24

26. Selected Strategies that Support ELLs as They Learn Mathematics • Identify and highlight key words. • Explain key words with multiple meanings. • Familiarize students with meaning and origin of technical terms (where appropriate). • Build on students languages and cultures • Include opportunities for cooperative learning experiences.