Mathematics

Resources for the Acquisition of English Language Learners

from around the world

MIDDLE SCHOOL AND SECONDARY

Some sites for Math teachers who don't speak Spanish (and for those that do)

I was thinking one day (on the right is a picture of me thinking) of a student I had in a statistics course who asked me for a statistics book in Spanish. He was having a hard time in the course and wanted to see whether his problem was the subject itself or a language barrier.At the time, I had no such resources to offer. Two sites on the right provide illustrations, step by step explanations of formuale, biographies of mathematicians, etc., all written in Spanish. Perhaps you don't speak Spanish. You can still give your students a Spanish language handout discussing linear equations to supplement the lecture you gave that day. An activity I like is to mix bilingual and monolingual students in a group and have them try to figure out the equations on one of these sheets. After all, mathematics is a language, too, isn't it?

Two pi - in Spanish - a site from Madrid, is definitely for the advanced middle school and high school students.Both the mathematics and the reading level required for this site are around high school. For students with substantial mathematics education in Spanish, for whom language is a barrier, this site is a good source for supplemental reading, with e.g., step by step explanations for solving linear equations.

I spent a lot of time at the Matematicas.net site. This site includes a page where you can download formulae for different figures, tables of integrals, derivatives, etc. The illustrations on the handouts are very well done, have been contributed from teachers around the world. Yes, I know you know the formulae already, but, for those of us who did better in Calculus than in Art class, the illustrated handouts are a nice supplement to the textbook. It also includes a lot of links to freeware and shareware mathematics programs you can download for your Palm, Macintosh or PC. Most of these programs are done in English.

In English, an article I liked very much on thematic instruction for teaching mathematics to middle school students. This comes from the National Clearinghouse on English Language Acquisition. Go to this site and search on mathematics. You will be glad you did.

A lesson on fractals is included here not only because it is a good way to catch the interest of students who are not interested in math, but also because the best fractal program for the Macintosh was done by my husband and you can get a free trial version here.

ELEMENTARY

I loved these !

Math teaching as it ought to be! As a former math teacher, I loved this article that gave not just examples on teaching mathematics to bilingual children in elementary school, but also a summary of the knowledge children bring to school and how they learn effectively.

An exemplary unit on teaching students to interpret, use and create graphs that proves research-based instruction is not merely the phrase of the day but actually a good, useful idea.

These both come from the National Clearinghouse on English Language Acquisition. Go to this site and search on mathematics. You will be glad you did. (I know I put this exact comment above under Seconday, but I did not want anyone to miss this site.) Also, I thought many of the articles and activities for middle school students could be used for upper elementary, so, if you are not finding a sufficiently high level of mathematics addressed in the elementary articles, look at middle school also.

Links on Dave's ESL cafe site to mathematics ideas. These are pretty basic and not as good as the rest of Dave's site, in my opinion, but there were good points that led me to include this link. For example, at first, I thought the lesson found here on saying numbers was insultingly basic. Then I was reminded that, in the United States, the number 1,234 is one thousand two hundred thirty-four and in many other countries it is one and two hundred thirty-four thousandths because some countries use the comma rather than a decimal. The ESOL strategy sheet summarized a lot of good ideas but the numerous typographical errors bugged me after a while. Some of these might be a bit basic for experienced math teachers. I know we all know the basics, such as drawing out word problems, using diagrams, visuals, captions, repeating key terms, etc. Personally, though, I find it good to be reminded every now and then.