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Using Math to Teach English

Using Math to Teach English. Armen. Hovhannes City College of San Francisco ahovhann@ccsf.edu www.ccsf.edu/shovanes CATESOL April 2006. Rationale.

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Using Math to Teach English

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  1. Using Math to Teach English Armen. Hovhannes City College of San Francisco ahovhann@ccsf.edu www.ccsf.edu/shovanes CATESOL April 2006

  2. Rationale • Relevance: Math is related to everything in life. The so-called “new new” math, or “whole math”, especially emphasizes this. Math is about problem solving in real-world situations. • Economics/Finance – Personal/Family/Business/Macroeconomics • Parenting – Assisting kids with homework • Brainstorm others here:

  3. Rationale (cont.) • Many students have strong mathematical intelligence. • math intelligence is an untapped resource in the ESL classroom • Many adult students have a lot of math schema in their L1 • Math is an international language that communicates meaning. • Many immigrant students in community college haveacademic/career goals in fields involving math/science/business. • Math is largely missing from most ESL courses/curricula/materials

  4. Basic Numbers & Math Go beyond just reciting/repeating the numbers. Spice up your curriculum with some math basics in English • Basic math operations vocabulary and expressions • Addition, subtraction, multiplication, division • How to say “plus”, “minus”, “equals”, etc. • How to pose the questions, i.e., “How much is ...?” • Percents and fractions • Decimals and commas • Note that the use of the point as decimal marker varies in different countries. Make sure S’s are clear on the use of the point and the comma in the US. • How to say large numbers • How to say numbers with decimals

  5. Basic Math activity Addition • Math Dictation • In the classroom, use calculators • Or, use Excel in the computer lab.

  6. Math Games and other fun stuff for students & parents Games with math and numbers • Math Bingos • Beat the calculator • Number guessing games “I’m thinking of a number...” Web sites – just a couple of examples • Figure this • At Home with Math • Education Place Brain Teasers

  7. Personal/Family Finance • This is a real favorite with students. I’ve done it in various ways. Here’s one: • Introduce concept and terminology of budgeting. • Students brainstorm expense categories. (Food, Rent, Transportation, etc.) This is excellent for generating vocabulary. • They can use real, estimated, or fantasy (ex. My Dream Budget) figures. They enter their information in a worksheet. (Here is an example.) They make a Pie Chart of their expenses. This is an example of the same student’s expense chart.

  8. Macroeconomics • Budgeting for the larger community • How would you spend $100 billion?

  9. Basic Business Math • Inventory • Expense log • Payroll and taxes • What’s the sales tax?

  10. Inventory word problem • You work in the bookstore. You have to do an inventory of some new books. You count the books and find that you have 85 copies of Side by Side2, 120 copies of Focus on Grammar, and 165 copies of Going Places Book 1. Side by Side costs 21.95 each. Focus on Grammar costs 25.49. Going Places costs 19.35. • What is the total cost of all the books? ____________ • How many total books are there? _____________ The worksheet might look something like this.

  11. Mileage Expense Report

  12. Payroll – reading the pay stub plus

  13. Statistics • Class surveys

  14. Just Ask Jeeves Though Jeeves, himself, has retired, you can still use ask.com to find information by writing regular English questions. Students get to practice writing wh-questions.

  15. Create a graph in Excel Students compile their data from the Ask.com exercise into a chart. They also do a writing activity, describing the data using comparatives/superlatives.

  16. Demographics • Infoplease.com/countries

  17. Activities with Infoplease

  18. Another great stats site These stats are great for guessing games! • www.nationmaster.com

  19. More Math web links • Helping your Children learn Math • http://www.ed.gov/pubs/parents/Math/index.html Good examples of math activities common in “whole math” curricula. • The Math Forum @ Drexel University • http://mathforum.org/ Good resource on everything in math ed for teachers, students, parents, and everyone else.

  20. Measurements • Area, Distance, Temperature, Speed, others • Volumes, weights, size

  21. Sports • Sports Stats • Who’s the most underpaid player in MLB today? (according to some commentator guy I just heard on TV) but then this is just an example of what you can do: You hear this stuff all the time, so the more current, the better. Questions relating to sports salaries are of interest even to the non-sports person.

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