Impact of spoken language on ability to do math?

[cattiechaos]

I recently came across an interesting book that devoted a chapter to the impact of language on learning math. It didn't come as a surprise to me that the author slated Chinese (and other Asian) students as having a natural advantage in math, because of the language they learn it in.

Comments

[conuly]

Which is actually a pretty efficient way of doing math in your head. It's obviously not going to work on paper very well, and if you have another way of doing mental math that works better for you, any decent math teacher will let you use YOUR method instead. (Mind, some teachers suck. I had one who got very upset when I used factors to do multiplication, even though it's obviously the superior method.)

In my head, I'd use a variation of that method. I'd say "16 and 27. Well, 27 and 3 is 30, so it's 13 and 30, which is 43." When I'm in the store, that's a lot faster than thinking "Okay, six plus seven... carry the one..." and I'm less likely to make a silly mistake.

[akibare]

Agreed here. I might do "16 and 27 is like 16 and 30, then remove the three."

But most importantly, in a STORE you don't need to care about the details, just round up always and you'll never be short of money, which is the main thing! :D

Of course I always have a pencil and some paper in my pocket, so for those rare occasions when I do have to bust out the long division, I'm prepared. It's gotten me some odd looks though.

(And now I have a smartphone. You'd think I'd remember there's a calculator on it, but surprisingly I tend to forget about that!)

[akibare]

I can't speak for him, but you might be interested to know that among homeschoolers in the US, a series "Singapore Math" is HUGELY popular. It started when a family that had lived in Singapore moved to the US and preferred importing the Singapore texts for their own children, and now they have permission from the Singapore ministry of education to make US-specific versions for sale in the US. Like I said, it's huge among the homeschooling community. I've never seen the books myself.

Their website is www.singaporemath.com .

[cattiechaos]

Thanks very much! I look forward to perusing that site.

[conuly]

We don't homeschool, but indeed, that's the set of books we use for "extra math" after school. The math the older niece was doing in school, it wasn't always "clicking" with her, and they focus a lot on understanding, which is fine, except it's to the detriment of speed... which ultimately frustrated her.

However, you should note that there are now several different companies selling books advertised as "Singapore" math. They're all roughly based on the curriculum used in Singapore, but that doesn't mean they're all the same.