3. Reflective thinking to Barwell’s article

Integrating language and content: Issues from the mathematics classroom

I agree to Barwell’s opinion that language and content can be seen as reflexively related, for example, through solving word problems. The various aspects of thinking mathematics and learning language are all closely interwoven, with attention to written form, to problem genre, and to mathematical structure. Barwell uses his analysis for two ESL students’ dialogue during word problem solving to demonstrate that there is a link between attention to mathematical structure (i.e. content) and attention to written form (i.e. language), including the correct use of words, word spelling, verb tense (grammar), which comprise important parts in language learning. His article enlightens me with a way of how to embed language learning into math learning and teaching, the way which will be beneficial for my future bilingual teaching in Shanghai.

Over the past ten years, Chinese Education Ministry has been engaged in making efforts to reform Chinese English instruction due to the fact that Chinese English instruction prior to 1998 showed a big failure in educating students to be English proficient. So, after investigating and observing the bilingual education in Singapore, Hongkong, Canada, China realized that to integrate English learning into other subjects involving math, physics, chemistry, PE, art, etc in formal school education, is an essential method to improve Chinese English teaching whose main goal aims to make Chinese students more proficient at English use and communication in the world because of the globalization. Shanghai municipal government encourages all schools to carry out bilingual teaching, which has already become an urgent task in accordance with the economic rapid development since 2000. Here, we need to note that in Shanghai (China), we say ‘bilingual teaching’ instead of ‘bilingual education’. The term ‘bilingual’ in Longman Applied Linguistic Dictionary is defined as:

(A person who) knows and uses two languages.

In everyday use, the word bilingual usually means a person who speaks, reads, or understands two languages equally well (a balanced bilingual), but a bilingual person usually has a better knowledge of one language than of the other.

　　For example, he / she may:

　　a) Be able to read and write in one language but speak and listen in another language.

　　b) Use each language in different types of situation, eg. one language at home and the other at work.

c) Use each language for different communicative purposes, eg. one language for talking about school life and the other for talking about personal feeling.

‘Bilingual Education’ means:

The use of a second or foreign language in school for the teaching of content subjects.

　　Bilingual education includes three models as below:

　　a) The use of a single school language which is not the child’s home language. This is sometimes called an immersion bilingual model.

　　b) The use of the child’s home language when the child enters school but later a gradual change to the use of the school language for teaching some subjects and the home language for teaching others or alternately use both home language and a second language in a subject teaching. This is sometimes called maintenance bilingual model.

c) The partial or total use of the child’s home language when the child enters a school and a later change to the use of the school language only. This is sometimes called transitional bilingual model.

(Wang, 2004)

Several influential educations, who have been long-term engaged in Chinese bilingual teaching field, including Wang, differentiated the concept of ‘education’ and the concept of ‘teaching’. Based on their discussion, ‘Education’ involves a series of planned activities influencing learners’ moral education, intellectual education, and physical education according to certain educational expectations. However, ‘teaching’ means the instructional interaction between teachers and students. From the above definitions, we can see that the concept of ‘teaching’ is narrower than the concept of ‘education’. Meanwhile, terming ‘bilingual teaching’ is more consistent with the current situation of Chinese language education. Our current situation discovers a fact that we lack sufficient bilingual teachers with good English proficiency whilst our students are generally identified as quite limited English proficiency. In so doing, we need to ground our bilingual teaching on the maintenance bilingual model as meaning to that we still have to depend on our home language to support students’ mathematical content understanding. All Chinese students are considered as ESL learners but different from the ESL learners in English spoken countries, because Chinese students only learn English at schools. If we integrate English learning and math content learning, we must note that both the understanding of math terminologies, concepts, problem structures and meanings in English and the ability to translate from English to mathematical symbols are hurdles to Chinese students. In the meantime, as far as I’m concerned, Chinese students as ESL learners need a math learning context in which they can practice and improve reading, listening, writing, speaking skills of English simultaneously rather than merely focus on one skill.

If I go back to Shanghai in the near future, I think that I will incorporate bilingual teaching into problem-based learning context where students can start language and math learning with carefully selected real-life problems. From my perspective, these problems arising from real life involve more than word problems. Over the past 40 years, many research findings demonstrated that students in PBL can become more active learners instead of passive recipients in the traditional environment. These problems are beneficial for helping students not only improve their reading skill but also enlarge their vocabulary reservoir subsuming both general English and mathematics English words and enrich their knowledge, including history, social development, etc about western countries. . They embrace the mathematics structures featured by word problems, so students also need to analyze math structures expressed in English and learn how to translate English words and sentences to mathematical symbols and expressions. They are ill-structured, so students need to seek for more information via different methods which can help students develop various learning skills, including problem- solving skill, critical thinking skill, cognitive skill, and etc. In PBL, students are usually divided into small groups of 5-6 in each. In the small groups, students can have more opportunities to participate in both verbal and written practices of English through searching the meaning of math technique words, comparing the meanings between general English words and math words, analyzing the problem sentence structures, explaining solution processes, describing conjectures, proving conclusions and presenting arguments. Students in the small groups can have less shyness and fear to speak English and share mathematical ideas more fully than in the big-size class.. If students have questions about what they are thinking and learning, the teacher, in PBL, as a facilitator, can help them dispel the puzzles and explain ‘why’ and ‘how’ questions either in English or home language to facilitate their understanding of math content and English language knowledge. At the final step of each lesson, each student will be encouraged to present their assimilation and applications of new knowledge (i.e. solving new similar problems) both verbally and in written form which purport to help them not only consolidate their math learning but also pratice their speaking and writing skills of English. In addition, I need to point out that, from my perspective, it’s not easy to be a blingual teacher, who should not only have sufficient math knowledge background but also be very competent at English language.

The above discussed is some of my immature thoughts for bilingual teaching in Shanghai. I’m still thinking about a better approach to make my future biligual teaching more efficient in accordance with the current language abilities and situations of Shanghai students.

Wang, B. H. (2004). Bilingual Education and Teaching in China. Journal of Education, Shanghai Education Press.