Teaching the language of mathematics at three levels of an English-medium primary school

ABSTRACT

This study, situated in a multilingual, English-medium educational context, draws on theory from mathematics and language education to capture teachers’ perspectives on the place of language in their mathematics pedagogy. The benchmark study explored this topic through surveying and interviewing teachers. Additionally, it sought to relate teachers’ views to their practice by focusing on observing three teachers’ mathematics lessons at primary one, three, and five. Findings are that mathematics teachers placed importance on teaching language, being specifically concerned with language as input and comprehension. They taught vocabulary and reading skills in supportive ways explicitly yet differently at the three grade levels. Particularly at the lower levels, teachers contextualised language in the concrete examples employed for mathematics teaching. At all three levels, prominence was given to teaching pupils how to read word problems as well as how to solve them. However, at primary three, a tension was observed between the two aims of teaching mathematical vocabulary and teaching the reading skills for word problems. This paper illustrates the tension and discusses its possible causes.

KEYWORDS:

• English language in education
• mathematics
• content learning
• primary school teaching
• multilingual context
• Singapore

Acknowledgments

This study was funded by Singapore Ministry of Education (MOE) under the Education Research Funding Programme (SUG14/15 SAJ) and administered by the National Institute of Education (NIE), Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Singapore MOE and NIE.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. Since the research was exploratory and grounded, we report in this article on aspects of teaching the language of mathematics that appeared significant to teachers. They were preoccupied with teaching input, in particular, vocabulary and reading. However, we acknowledge the significant role of output in learning language and mathematics although it is not the focus of this article.

2. FAST kits are sets of cards, with one large capital letter written on each, for example, A, B, or C. As part of classroom assessment, a teacher may ask children to signal their thinking by holding up a card. All the cards can then be clearly seen by the teacher.

Additional information

Funding

This work was funded by the Singapore Ministry of Education under the Education Research Funding Programme and administered by the National Institute of Education (NIE), [grant number SUG 14/15 SAJ].

Notes on contributors

Sally Ann Jones

Sally Ann Jones is a senior lecturer at the National Institute of Education, Singapore. She teaches courses in English language and literature pedagogy and furthers this work in schools. Her research specialisations are children’s reading and texts, teacher education, language in education, and children and families’ experiences of education in multilingual contexts.

Mark Fifer Seilhamer

Mark Fifer Seilhamer is a lecturer in the English Language and Literature Academic Group at the National Institute of Education, Singapore. In addition to examining the role of language in education in Singapore, he has conducted research probing a variety of language and identity issues in Singapore, Taiwan, and Japan.