Math Blog #7: Strategies for ESL Students

Math already comes with a unique set of challenges due to its negative stigma, its mix of number and word problems, and the countless equations (and exceptions) students are expected to know (I'm hiding my English bias so well aren't I?). Then take all of that and imagine it was in a language you barely know. This is the reality for ELL/ESL students, and keeping up with math might seem daunting for both student and teacher, but educators everywhere have been sharing their strategies for teaching math to ESL students in the hopes of making the process easier for student and teacher alike. I'd like to share some of those strategies here:

My math professor Rebecca Bunz has had experience working with ESL students and she shared these strategies with our class:

- Provide concrete examples, models, etc
- Simplify the language not the ideas
- Introduce new vocabulary with contextual support
- Have students keep a personal dictionary; can write definitions in both languages
- Non-verbal cues such as gestures and body language
- Give extra processing time
- Spend extra time to ensure they understand the problem

- Have them rewrite problems in their own words

On my search for ELL/ESL strategies I read an article called "Math Instruction for English Language Learners" on a website called Colorin Colorado, an educational website that provides free research-based information, activities, and advice to parents, and schools on ELL learning. The author, ELL specialist Kristina Robertson writes in the introduction to the article that many people make the assumption that math is a universal language and that many ELL students will excel at it. But she points out that this is not necessarily true, especially since many of these students may lack a prior knowledge of math terms we consider common. And so she goes on to give her advice for math teachers with ELL students and there are a few points I'd like to share:

1) The Importance of Teaching Academic Vocabulary

Teaching the difference between the definition of a word and the mathematical definition of the word. As shown here, expressions like "find X" can be very confusing because it could be taken literally.

- make sure to explain that words can have multiple names

- encourage students to offer bilingual support to each other

Robertson, K. Equation. [Online Image]. 
Retrieved from http://www.colorincolorado.org/article/

2) The Importance of Reading and Understanding Written Questions

She included a good quote from Reading and Understanding Written Math Problems that sums up the problem quite well: "Word problems in mathematics often pose a challenge because they require that students read and comprehend the text of the problem, identify the question that needs to be answered, and finally create and solve a numerical equation — ELLs who have had formal education in their home countries generally do not have mathematical difficulties; hence, their struggles begin when they encounter word problems in a second language that they have not yet mastered" (Bernardo, 2005).

Word problems are generally the most common issue for ELL students because of the language barrier. She suggests explicit instruction of key vocabulary, daily practice of problem solving, repeated readings of the word problem together as a class, and hands-on activities such as movement, experiments, or drawing to help students comprehend the problem (Robertson).