Language Switching in Solving Mathematical Problems among Second Year High School Students

Abstract

INTRODUCTION

This study aims to determine the effectiveness of Language switching in solving Mathematical problems among second-year students of Looc National High School in the Division of Calamba City.

METHODS

It made use of the pre-test post-test control group design where respondents were heterogeneously grouped. There were two (2) groups of students who served as control and experimental, first was for Mathematics teaching exposed in pure English with 26 students and the second was exposed in Language Switching with 26 students, SY 2011-2012. Simple Language Switching was applied, i.e., the shift from English to Filipino to facilitate Mathematics classroom learning to attain a better understanding. Grades in English and Math were used to match the respondents in each group. The pre-test score was also used to validate the groupings.

RESULTS

The study revealed that there is no significant difference in the mean grades and scores of the respondents in the control and experimental groups in the pre-test. This implies that the starting knowledge of both groups was the same. The mean difference of the respondents in control and experimental groups obtained 26.92 and 27.58 respectively for significant gain t-test value of 0.49 t significance level of 0.63 which described no significant difference. It denotes that those who were involved in a pure English discussion performed the same as those students included in Language Switching discussion. However, respondents' level of interest on Language Switching in Experimental group was positive with posted weighted interpretation of mostly agree.

DISCUSSIONS

Based on the result of the study showing little difference in their gain, the teacher can use either of the two languages during Mathematics classroom discussion. This only manifest that language switching discussion is not different with pure English, however, the responses of students were positive towards Language Switching and can be concluded as an accepted approach to teaching and learning of Mathematics.