Researchers found that English children do worse than Chinese, Burmese, Japanese, Korean, Thai and Vietnamese Children in number sense (Fuson & Briars, 1990)...
WHY?
Actually, English words for two-digit numbers are irregular compared to those in Chinese, Burmese, Japanese, Korean, Thai and Vietnamese... For example, English call... 11 as "eleven" compared to Chinese "ten one" (shi yi); 23 as "twenty three" in English compared to Chinese "two-ten three" (ershi san)... The words "eleven" and "twenty" are called irregular in pattern compared to "shi yi" and "ershi san".
This disadvantage leads to inability to sense the patterns and recognize the place value of each digit. Therefore, English students are worse in performance in number sense and place value compared to Chinese, Burmese, Japanese, Korean, Thai and Vietnamese.
HOW ABOUT MALAY LANGUAGE?
Unsurprisingly Malay language comes in between both languages. Although 11 to 19 is irregular in Malay language i.e. "sebelas" up to "sembilan belas" (are we previously influenced by English?), we are not irregular in "dua puluh" to " "dua puluh sembilan" compared to English's "twenty" to "twenty nine". However Chinese are better in number system compared to us, Malay in terms of language usage which is proven as efficient in developing students' number sense...
No wonder Chinese students performance in mathematics is the best in the world (TIMMS, 2008). Do we need to turn to English in learning maths? We are now learning in English, should we turn back to Malay? Obviously, the best learning occurs in mother tongue (UNESCO, 2007)...
WHAT SHOULD WE DO?
Due to the fact that we have already learnt in English, we should upgrade our teaching so that we can increse students' number sense by planning our teaching based on the Piaget's Framework of Knowledge (Piaget, 1971)... And the most important thing is we try our best to implement the concept of sincerity in our job and pray to Allah SWT to facilitate our students in their learning...
WHY?
Actually, English words for two-digit numbers are irregular compared to those in Chinese, Burmese, Japanese, Korean, Thai and Vietnamese... For example, English call... 11 as "eleven" compared to Chinese "ten one" (shi yi); 23 as "twenty three" in English compared to Chinese "two-ten three" (ershi san)... The words "eleven" and "twenty" are called irregular in pattern compared to "shi yi" and "ershi san".
This disadvantage leads to inability to sense the patterns and recognize the place value of each digit. Therefore, English students are worse in performance in number sense and place value compared to Chinese, Burmese, Japanese, Korean, Thai and Vietnamese.
HOW ABOUT MALAY LANGUAGE?
Unsurprisingly Malay language comes in between both languages. Although 11 to 19 is irregular in Malay language i.e. "sebelas" up to "sembilan belas" (are we previously influenced by English?), we are not irregular in "dua puluh" to " "dua puluh sembilan" compared to English's "twenty" to "twenty nine". However Chinese are better in number system compared to us, Malay in terms of language usage which is proven as efficient in developing students' number sense...
No wonder Chinese students performance in mathematics is the best in the world (TIMMS, 2008). Do we need to turn to English in learning maths? We are now learning in English, should we turn back to Malay? Obviously, the best learning occurs in mother tongue (UNESCO, 2007)...
WHAT SHOULD WE DO?
Due to the fact that we have already learnt in English, we should upgrade our teaching so that we can increse students' number sense by planning our teaching based on the Piaget's Framework of Knowledge (Piaget, 1971)... And the most important thing is we try our best to implement the concept of sincerity in our job and pray to Allah SWT to facilitate our students in their learning...
