Judit Moschkovich (2017)
This paper re-reviews previous studies that
examined the correlation between language/number names and mathematics performance
in general (e.g., the structure of number
name in some Asian languages is intuitive for learners as the base ten structure
whereas some European languages have irregular patterns: for example 11-13 are named
ten-one, ten-two, and ten-three in Japanese, but
they are elven, twelve, and thirteen in English), and suggests the implementation
of research for relationship between language and mathematics learning/teaching
in the multilingual context. The author criticizes those prior research based
on the criteria introduced by Lucy (1996) and points out that the evidence in the previous research did not perfectly cover the correlation such as one between
mathematics performance and number system in the specific language. Rather, he argues that mathematics outcomes
should be caused by not only linguistic difference but various factors and they
are intertwined. Lastly, he proposes mathematics education researchers exploring the relationship between mathematics
learning/teaching and language, should not use the deficit model which examines
negative features of the leaners who have
culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds in mathematics learning. Instead,
he recommends that they focus on the contributions for mathematical thinking of
those students with including multi perspectives such as language, multimodality,
and multi-semiotic in mathematics.
Comments
When I heard some unique structures of
number name in another language such as
German, I thought it should be tough to speak for the language learners. Actually, as a non-English native speaker, I never faced difficulties
which come from different number name structure when solving calculations in
English (I guess I am using Japanese in my mind). However, my students in
Japanese school who are bilingual speakers often miss writing numbers in Japanese characters. For example, 21 are written
in 二十一 in Japanese
(means two-ten-one) and the students often write 二一 (means two-one, this is incorrect
because of missing ten). I am not sure this fragment comes from the students’
confusion about different number names between English and Japanese, but they
never incorrectly read and operate those numbers in Japanese. Although Asian languages
were focused in previous studies introduced in this paper, Singapore whose
official language is English keeps showing significant outcomes in mathematics
in international academic performance tests such as TIMSS. From this point, I
have doubt for the idea that the type of language correlates to the speaker’s academic
performance in mathematics though it might influence on mathematics learning when
they are language learners.
After I read this article, I become to be curious about problems of mathematical proof
the students cope in my school. For secondary level, some problems requiring
mathematical proof can often be seen in the
textbook, and the students need to write the answer in the appropriate way in Japanese.
In addition to the issues in their mathematical
discussions and word problems, the way to proof in Japanese also can be one of their
difficulties.
Thanks Tsubasa! It's good to see Moschkovich critiquing an overly-simplistic analysis of number names as the main cause of mathematical achievement differences across cultures -- although, as you say, this might be important at early learning stages. I would like to hear more about how proofs look in Japanese! Could you post one or two Japanese-language proofs with a gloss of each word and a translation? I think this could potentially spark a very interesting study...
ReplyDeleteOh, and just so you know, Judit Moschkovich is a woman, so I would use 'she'.