Ok, here I go. As I started creating this blog, I went back and for, on whether I should write it in English or in Spanish. Well I think I’ll do it in both. So, don’t be surprised when you see a post in Spanish. After all, this year, I’ll be teaching mathematics in Spanish and I will need need advise from my Spanish speakers’ audience.
It’s been four year, since I started teaching math, but this will be my first year I do it in my native language, Spanish. I have many questions about how beneficial is it to be bilingual and learning mathematics. My younger son, Julius is attending a Spanish Immersion elementary school and his conceptual understanding of mathematics is pretty good. But I am not sure whether having learned math in Spanish might might have influence his math understanding or having a math teacher as a mom.
I started looking at some internet articles about the benefits of learning mathematics in a bilingual setting. I found one article in the Journal of Experimental Child Psychology that says, ” that bilingual children consistently performed better at tasks that need working memory. Also, the more complex the task was, the better bilinguals performed. People with good working memory have higher self-control and ability to keep distractions away.”
But I wonder whether learning mathematics in another language helps understands mathematics conceptually.
