Chpt8: Reading, writing and meta-linguistics
As I commented on the previous chapter, this chapter mentions reading of mathematics. The author introduces several examples of reading in mathematics texts. There are a symbol of “+”, dy/dx, number of multi-base, “:” in ratio, and matrices. The author acknowledges both spelling pronunciation and interpretative pronunciation are accepted in mathematics, and he insists spelling pronunciation can be shorter than interpretative one such as “sigma” or “integral”. However, this spelling pronunciation can benefit for mathematician while it seems like “the symbols are the objects of mathematics” for the mathematics learners. Therefore, reading mathematical wiring is difficult to both decode and understand it for the novice because simplicity is considered more important than accessibility in mathematics.
Additionally, the author shows the case of Benny who 11-year-old students and views fraction and decimals as symbols. He gives priority to the rule of combination of the mathematical symbols, and he believes it can lead to the correct answer. Therefore, the author suggests that mathematics teachers should understand what kind of activity is believed and engaged by the students.
When I see mathematical texts in English I often wonder how we can correctly read those in English. Because I have already learned once those mathematics ideas, ways to operate and conceptions in the Japanese language, I think I understand the meaning of them. However, it is not easy to access how to read them in English because most mathematics textbooks in English do not cover how to pronounce mathematics texts. (Actually, I often heard them for the first time via conversations with other grad students or profs in the courses!)
In the Japanese national curriculum, one of the evaluations Japanese mathematics teacher has to adopt is whether the student can express their mathematical idea with proper terminologies. However, some of my students in the Japanese school feel difficulty to do appropriate mathematical expression in Japanese as same as myself in English. When they understand the concepts of the mathematical idea they have learned before, teaching mathematics can be equivalent to teaching language of mathematics. Therefore, for language learners’ mathematics learning, knowledge of applied linguistics is a crucial resource for mathematics teachers.
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