emCETT

Is there a correlation between learning
English grammar and maths?

An interdisciplinary approach to learning and teaching in English and Maths


Practitioner-Lead Action Research project undertaken at Kirklees College
during two academic semesters in 2015 into correlation between teaching and learning both English grammar and mathematics.
The project was carried out with the support of emCETT


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INTRODUCTION


Reason for research

  1. Students - Observations of students learning English and Adult Numeracy
  2. Organisation - Exam results indicating low marks in grammar both in spoken exams and written assignments
  3. Experience - own experience of learning English as a foreign language

Over decades, numerous approaches and methods to teaching and learning languages have been developed and, each time, regarded as the most effective. Recently, in the post-method era, language teaching seems to have been focused on the ability to communicate fluently, even at the expense of accuracy. This reseach project is not an attempt at proving that English language and mathematics are exactly the same but there are some aspects of language which require the same 'precision' as mathematics and can be viewed and taught the same way.


Students:

Over 19 years old students of ESOL (English for Speakers of Other Languages) and Adult Numeracy were involved in the project.



THEORY


Theoretical Assumptions:

- Learning vs acquisition. Learning is seen as a conscious process of studying English as opposed to the subconscious process of ‘picking up’ the language (Crystal, 2003)

- Formal instruction which is understood to refer to grammar teaching (Ellis, 1994)

- Inductive vs deductive way of instruction. Inductive (more traditional) method where the rules are explained and examples are given to practise

Support from other areas:

- Cognitive studies -metacognition - inductive reasoning






  • Problem to solve
  • Analogy - notice the analogy and perform mapping correctly
  • Reflect upon the knowledge understood as key aspects of the problem
  • Importance of being taught to look for analogies during problem solving ("learning to learn")
  • Analogies contribute to the acquisition and reorganization of the knowledge (Goswani,2008)

  • Research into analogical reasoning shows that even 3-year-old children succeed in the item analogy task (Goswami & Brown, 1989)



    QUESTIONNAIRES


    40 students were asked three questions to find out their opinions about their competence concerning English grammar and Maths. The questions were as follows:

    1. Do you like learning maths/grammar?
    2. Do you think it's easy?
    3. Are you good at maths/grammar?

    The first two questions were given to start students thinking about the two areas and only the last one was used to collate the results regarding their competence.


    Students:

    Over 19 years old students of ESOL (English for Speakers of Other Languages) and Adult Numeracy were involved in the project.




    METHOD






    My teaching has been based on the idea of rules governing both English language and mathematics. The rules existent in English and mathematics are understood as tenses and formulae respectively. I believe that they can be instructed the same way. The instruction involved presenting the rules and students completing the tasks.


    Two main English tenses were chosen and the instruction including the tasks for students were planned as follows:

    1. Adding –ed suffix to regular verbs
    2. Structuring sentences in Past Simple ( Subject+verb+Object)
    3. Structuring sentences in Present Perfect ( Subject+have/has+verb)

    Students needed to use the regular verbs with the –ed suffix to create sentences in both tenses.




    Regarding mathematics I selected four tasks around the formulae of working out the area and perimeter of shapes and discounts.
    The tasks involved working out:

    1. The perimeter of squares - addition of four numbers
    2. The area of triangles - multiplication of the base and height divided by 2
    3. The sale price – subtraction of discount from the original price
    4. The discount - multiplication of the price by percentage and division by 100

    The area of triangles (2) and working out the discount (4) both required students to multiply two numbers and division by another to get the result.




    RESULTS




    The questionaires were used to assess students' own competence in English grammar and mathematics. The students were given three options to answer which were: yes, no, and so-so. It was, however, the correlation between the answers which we were interested in. The same answers for two areas, irrespective of the opinion, meant that there is a correlation between them. I considered it to be a partial correlation when students assessed one of the areas as ‘so-so’. There was no correlation when students gave to distinct answers e.g. Yes for mathematics and No for English grammar. As a result I got the percentages as follows:


    TABLE 1:



    A CORRELATION

    A PARTIAL CORRELATION

    NO CORRELATION

    T1. Percentages of students' opinions of the levels of competency in English grammar and maths.

    After the instruction students were given a short test to find out if they were able to follow the rule. To be able to compare the results with their opinions I used the percentages to establish the competence using the same criteria as the students’ answers in the questionnaires as yes ( percentage of correct answers between 67% and 100%), no ( percentage between 0% and 33%), and so-so ( percentage between 34% and 66%).



    TABLE 2:



    A CORRELATION

    A PARTIAL CORRELATION

    NO CORRELATION

    T2. Percentages of students' opinions and test results of the levels of competency in English grammar and maths.

    Looking at the results, the considerable discrepancies between the students’ opinions and the results of the test can be seen. The 12.5 % for good competence in both areas has increased up to 84.21% of what students could actually do. A slight decrease in the percentage of the rest of the students’ answers is evident.


    Although it is the correct answers that give us information to work with, I also looked at the incorrect answers and we noticed:


    English grammar


    Mathematics

    Some of the incorrect answers in mathematics were as follows:


    All of the above examples of inappropriate answers are still a proof of students applying the rules which they were instructed with.

    Conclusions




    Comparing the results of students’ opinions and the results of the test following the instruction I have drawn the following conclusions:


    The analysis of the rest of inappropriate answers as well as discussions with some students while working on the project I have identified the following issues:


    To eliminate the above factors a further study is needed over a longer period of time. Although it appears to be a more complex process, there is an indication of the ability to follow rules in both areas even by the students who regard themselves or are regarded as having low competence in English grammar and mathematics.


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