In an effort to help our students develop their English language proficiency, educators tend to push students' other language to side. Instead of viewing the other language as an asset, the implied message to students is that it is a hindrance. I visited a mathematics classroom a couple of weeks ago and I noticed a group of students solving word problems with their teacher during small group. Their conversations & analyzing of the word problem were talking place in English and the students seemed to have a good understanding of what was going on in the problem. They were able to explain their approach to solving the problem successfully. When it came time for the computation, it seemed that a couple of the students were getting a bit stuck. They knew what to do, but it was just going slowly. One students was looking away while trying to complete some calculations in English, but again it looked like the student was having difficulty. Based on the student work it didn't seem as if the student was having difficulty with the math, but rather with the language. One suggestion that I shared, was prompting the student to switch to Spanish to do his calculations. Procedures such as counting, multiplying, spelling words etc. are something that a student can do in their other language that will not hinder comprehension. I find that when I am tired, I tend to switch to Spanish. Although, I only received partial Spanish instruction in K-2, multiplying and dividing in Spanish. That is a bit odd, because I did not learn multiplication until grade 3 which was all English instruction. Let's give our students the go-ahead to use their other language to support their learning!
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