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Language in Mathematical Education
By Brian Moody (M766) on Thursday, October 12, 2000 - 04:28 pm:

I am a final year student studying Primary Education at Glasgow University. I am presently researching how pupils respond to the language used in Primary Mathematics. If anyone knows of books, journals etc…, that deals with this subject area could they please forward their information. Thank you.
Also, I would be interested to know the opinions of others in this area.
Does the language used in Primary Mathematics create barriers to the learning of mathematical concepts?

By Suzanne Tucker (Set25) on Friday, October 27, 2000 - 10:07 pm:

I am currently doing a P.G.C.E. in Secondary maths and we haven't yet dealt with the use of language much - but I do have a list of suggested reading that we were given for our language session...

Brissenden, T (1988) Talking about Mathematics, London: Blackwell

Durkin, K and Shire, B (Eds) (1991) Language in mathematical education, Buckingham: Open University Press

Johnston-Wilder, S. & Johnston-Wilder, P (Eds) (1999) Learning to teach mathematics in the secondary school: a companion to school experience. Chapter 7. London:Routledge

Pimm, D (1987) Speaking mathematically: communication in the classroom, London: Hodder and Stoughton

Shan, S-J and Bailey, P (1991) Multiple factors: classroom mathematics for equality and justice, Stoke on Trent: Trentham

Also, I think that the National Numeracy Strategy is designed to help primary teachers teach maths in a way that won't be detrimental to their pupils future studies.

One of the things that I have come across already in school is children who consider multiplying by 10 to be like "adding a nought" - this leads to problems later when children need to multiply decimals by 10. For instance where do you add the nought when you multiply 2.7 by 10?

We have also discussed the use of the word "borrowing" when explaining a method for long multiplication and how it can be confusing for children as technically you aren't really borrowing as there is no giving back!

Sorry that this is not that helpful - I hope it's not too late.

Good luck for the rest of your course!