My students know that I love to talk about language in my maths lessons. I appear to be particularly obsessed with Latin and Greek. It seems I can't introduce a new mathematical term without exposing its etymology. I think it's a great skill for students to learn though: to be able to use known prefixes and roots to work out the meaning of an unknown word.
I put together this PowerPoint to test students on:
- Funny plurals in mathematical words (e.g. formulae, vertices)
- The number prefixes like tri-, oct-, etc
- Guessing the meaning of foreign words for numbers.
My mathematical literacy PowerPoint can be found on the TES.
I have used this with middle-ability year nines.
Let me know what you think!
This post was written by Emma Cooke, Sidney Stringer Academy, Coventry
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