The following quotation-marked paragraphs are cut and pasted from http://www.mathinenglish.com. This was written primarily with ESL students in mind, but I believe that Adult Ed learners (the setting in which I teach) can profit tremendously from this kind of understanding from their teachers, whether those learners are ESL or not. I have removed some of the ESL-specific language from the paragraphs below in order to clarify the message as being pertinent to all learners that struggle with math and the vocabulary required to learn it, so while there are deletions, there are no other alterations to this article.
“Math word problems are what math is all about: the ability to solve problems. Word problems describe real-life math applications and make math meaningful. It seems, unfortunately, that many students struggle with these word problems. Why is this? Is it because of the underlying math concepts or are reading skills the obstacle?”
“Math word problems require both math skills and academic reading skills. Many students have difficulties in ‘reading for understanding’ and will, consequently, struggle in solving math word problems.”
“Without word problems, math will only be numbers and operations and most students will never understand why they are studying it. Math needs to be meaningful and students need to know how they can use it in their daily life’s environment.”
“What can teachers do in this catch 22 situation in which both math and English skills are required? First of all we need to look very critically at our math content and especially our math books. Most word problems can be simplified in terms of vocabulary. Teachers can easily re-write problems and use situations and words that the students are familiar with.”
“Furthermore, teachers can (need to):
-use cooperative learning strategies
-have students write their own word problems (as a check for understanding)
-use video material, presentations, theatre play
-create material in which students have to fill in the gaps.”
“Especially this last point is very effective. Teachers can make work sheets with word problems and have students fill in the names, nouns or numbers. Many students (try to) solve word problems by guessing the operations. By leaving information out of a word problems students will be tuned in and actively trying to solve the problem.“
“On MathinEnglish we offer many worksheets based on these principles. We keep the language and grammar simple, use simple situations, use words that (ESL) students know and use the fill-in-the-gap structure. We also promote that after studying a set of word problems, students create their own problems. By doing this teachers can check for understanding.”
Mack Ames Books and Maine Moose Patrol 