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ESOL Online. Every child literate - a shared responsibility.
Ministry of Education.

Learning task 1

Getting started

It is best if the following activities are carried out by a group of 6 - 10 students who are at a similar stage of mathematical thinking in terms of their addition/subtraction strategies and fluency reading 1-digit, 2-digit, and 3-digit whole numbers.

Adaptation for ESOL students: Consider smaller groupings for ESOL students, (4 - 6),and group those ESOL students with stronger English skills with ESOL students whose English language is not so strong. Evidence suggests that students from a shared background may be more likely to assist each other.

Hand out play money to a group of students and have them play "The Great Money Sort!" where they are asked to sort random piles of play money into logical piles. For the first day, students will be involved in exploring number patterns and relationships that they see in the play money, making amounts with the money by grouping it into ones, tens, hundreds and so on.

The great money sort!

As students take the mess of play money and begin to sort the money into piles, have them discuss patterns that they observe as they look at the numbers in the play money.

Adaptation for ESOL students: Tell students to think through their ideas in their first language, and then check to see if they can express these ideas in English. Model the English yourself, verbally labelling the resources, actions and desired results.

Have students sort as much of the play money as possible (that is, using thousands, millions, billions...). Have them discuss how they are choosing to organise the money into piles, and why.

Possible questions/prompts as students are sorting the money into piles:

  •  "What do you notice that is the same about all of the money?"
  •  "What do you notice that is different?"
  •  "What patterns do you notice in the numbers on the money?"
  •  "Can you find another way to describe the patterns that you see?"
  •  "How do you know which group of notes to put in the next pile?"
  •  "Why is that a logical choice?"
  •  "How could you record the pattern that you see using numbers?"

 Eventually, all of the money should get sorted into piles that go from:

  •  one
  •  ten
  •  hundred
  •  thousand
  •  ten thousand
  •  hundred thousand
  •  million
  •  ten million
  •  hundred million
  •  billion
  •  ten billion
  •  hundred billion
  •  trillion

Encourage students to offer suggestions about patterns that they see in the numbers and to describe the same pattern in as many different ways as they possibly can such as:

  •  I see the 1 repeating at the start of each number.(1, 10, 100, 1 000, 10 000...)
  •  I see zeros repeating. (10, 100, 1 000, 10 000...)
  •  I see the zeros growing at the ends of the numbers... 1 zero here - 10 (tens), 2 zeros here - 100 (hundreds), 3 zeros here - 1 000 (thousands) etc.
  •  I see 1, 10, 100 and that keeps repeating in the thousands (1 thousand, 10 thousand, 100 thousand), the millions (1 million, 10 million, 100 million) etc.

 Students can record their patterns on paper to share with each other during the discussion.

Adaptation for ESOL students: Ask that the patterns are described in words. You may need to model this first. Consider creating a 'useful words' list, possibly a wall chart, (this will grow as the lessons progress) in a prominent place, ask students to use these words in their writing about the patterns. The words to include so far might be zeros, repeating, thousands, hundreds, millions, patterns, groups.

Write the sentence patterns on a wall chart as well.

Once students have communicated their patterns with the group, turn their attention back to the piles of money. Ask questions that will help students focus on the pattern that can be described as grouping by tens (for example, that 10 ones makes 1 ten, that 10 tens makes 1 hundred). This can also be discussed and recorded as powers of ten (100 = 10 x 10 = 102; 1000 = 10 x 10 x10 = 103).

  •  "How many tens do you need to make one hundred dollars?
  •  "How many hundreds do you need to make one thousand dollars?"
  •  "If you add 1 more thousand to 9 thousand dollars, how much will you have?"
  •  "If I have 10 hundred thousand dollar notes in this pile, how many have I got?"

At this stage, some revision of forward and backward counting may be required. In particular, students will often struggle when counting on the last ten/hundred/thousand in any group. You may need to use number lines and/or hundred charts to revise counting forward and backward in ones, tens, hundreds, etc. before you continue. For example:

  •  piles of ten: ...50, 60, 70, 80, 90 and 10 more makes... many students will incorrectly say the next number is 20
  •  piles of hundreds: ... 700, 800, 900... many students will simply get "stuck" here because they don't know the language of 1,000 or connect it to 900 + 100 more.

Adaptation for ESOL students: It may be useful to have the class 'recite' (aloud) numbers and sequences as they are pointed out on the board. This ensures all students practise saying the words in a safe, non-threatening environment. (N.B. It would not be safe to ask an ESOL student to stutter through an embarrassingly poor recitation alone.)

Where students struggle, have them actually count out the money in tens, hundreds or thousands saying the numbers aloud as they add on more money. Once students have had experience with counting on in tens ($30, $40, $50...), hundreds ($600, $700, $800...), thousands ($2 000, $3,000... $4,000...) stop the students at key times and have them predict how many notes of one denomination will be required to make the next amount required without counting on to find out. For example:

  • I see you have counted out 7 thousand dollar notes which make $7,000 so far, how many more thousand dollar notes do you need in order to make $10 000 altogether (3 more)? How do you know? How did you work that out?
  • I see you have counted up to $50 000 using ten thousand dollar notes... how many $10 000 notes have you counted so far (5) and how many more do you need to make $100 000? How do you know without counting on?
  • Can you use an easier pattern/problem to help you solve it?

Adaptation for ESOL students: It may be wise to question ESOL students one-to-one, or in smaller, like groups for this task. The questioning and encouragement to speak about maths is a very valuable technique - so long as it is in a safe environment.

If the rest of the class is not generally accepting of the difficulties faced by ESOL students we do not place them in a position of potential ridicule. The belief that students will 'harden up' and need to 'get used to it' is unfounded. Move slowly on your public speaking expectations.

Published on: 09 Jan 2018




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