Abstract
The United Arab Emirates has been rapidly developing its educational institutions and trying to adopt a western system of higher education. The government has chosen English to be the medium of instruction in universities and thus has become a critical factor in student learning. In mathematics classes, it can be seen that students struggle to grasp concepts not just because of the actual content but also because of the language barrier. Language is intertwined with the multiple facets of mathematics education but one of the more salient areas is in comprehending mathematical text and problems. This paper attempts to summarize previous research findings that are related to this issue and describe problems faced by teachers using actual classroom cases. The conclusion of this paper outlines some tentative recommendations and a future research agenda to develop strategies to resolve these issues.
Highlights
During an exam, a student asked, “When do we use discounts in this word problem?” The word was not “discount” but “biscuit.” For him, these two words looked very similar, with the b and d in the beginning, and the s, c, and t all in the same position
“Mister, this test is very different from the review questions we had!” It was the same except for the contextualization of the word problems, yet it seemed very foreign for the students
Similar to what other researchers have found, they may start looking for key words like mean, greater than, or standard deviation and pick out the numbers beside them that they can use for a formula (De Corte et al, 1985)
Summary
A student asked, “When do we use discounts in this word problem?” The word was not “discount” but “biscuit.” For him, these two words looked very similar, with the b and d in the beginning, and the s, c, and t all in the same position. It is hypothesized that the relationship of English reading skills and mathematics performance might not even be linear – that there is a minimum reading level associated with improved performance (Beal et al, 2010) These issues present themselves in class in reading and in other areas simultaneously: when instructors deliver lectures; when students listen to the instructor; during discourse between students and instructors and among students; when reading textbooks; during note-taking; when understanding questions in exercises and exams; and so on. Most of the literature pertains to elementary, middle, and secondary school ELL’s in western countries whose primary language (Spanish) is relatively similar to English in terms of orthography and linguistic family These are good references and starting points for the study of challenges Emirati university students face 96 | FISER’14 in this environment. It is important to look at these issues more closely and outline a plan to produce and test strategies that will help students learn mathematics more effectively
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