BENGALURU: It’s not always the numerals that make many students break out in a cold sweat. According to a recent research, children also face trouble with solving mathematics questions because of language barrier.
As many as 75 per cent of middle school students struggle in the subject due to difficulty in comprehending word problems, a recent study conducted by ClassKlap has found. A whopping 97 per cent of teachers surveyed agreed that it is important for the child to understand English in order to solve math problems. Out of this, 46 per cent teachers strongly agreed with it. The survey took responses from 417 teachers in the country, of which 35 per cent were from Bengaluru and from private schools where English is used as the medium.
“Math involves word problems which require a basic command of the language. If a student cannot understand terms like ‘take away’, ‘took’, ‘together’ in the word problem, then he/she wouldn’t be able to solve the question,” said Naveen Mandava, co-founder of ClassKlap, an education technology company.
Studies have also shown that children tend to suffer from ‘math anxiety’. “Inability to comprehend keywords, sentences and questions creates anxiety for the student,” Mandava added. While addition, subtraction, multiplication and division can be learnt, understanding when and where to use these concepts can be difficult, raising the question of whether the student knows the language well enough to understand the usage of the concepts.
Students in English medium private schools are restricted from choosing their regional language for exams. Padma Nagesh, who teaches math at the primary level, said, “In lower classes, the problem is that teachers expect all the children to have a good vocabulary and understand the question as it is. Children don’t express their difficulty and hence tend to learn the question and even the answers by rote. So when the question is changes slightly during exams, they go blank and experience panic.”
Mandava feels that if a school is English medium, then math should be taught in English. “However, it should be ensured that the language part of math is taught at the grade-appropriate level,” he says, adding, “Math is a combination of language and logic. Unfortunately, the language part is missed out by many teachers. If teachers can focus on the language part by building the math vocabulary of students, it will lead to reduced anxiety and better scores.”