Use of English

	During the first part of the project I revised some basic language exponents and provided new ones that could be useful to handle the discussions. These mostly focused on specific language items related to mathematics and statistics, and talking about quantities.
Language exponents	how many ... ? how much ... ? What is\are the most ... ? What's the percentage of fathers who.... ? There are more ... than ... As an average, how many ...? Most of .... Only few mothers .... [some / any / a lot / a few^] Please, sum up the number of (students who...) .... Seven students out of sixteen ... Can anybody help me out on (these calculation)?
Vocabulary	Another language activity that complemented the project was to ask students to think of possible useful words or phrases for their work during discussions. Some of the vocabulary came as a result of dictionary work on their part, but I also contributed, mostly to speed up the activity. Examples of specific vocabulary: divide; multiply; to the power of; add; subtract; [3.15], [15,000]; find out; calculate; work out; ... and so on
Discourse markers	When you set up a project that involves formal group discussions, it would be a good idea to present (or revise) some common discourse markers. This will give the the students basic skills in taking turns, take the floor, emphasize their point, and so on. I didn't do it !! Or rather, I didn't preparare the students on it beforehand, so I tried to make up for it, during the actual discussion sessions. Result? Not so brilliant. At the beginning they tried to use the proper expressions, but soon they just forgot about them!
	back to previous page