Teaching Numbers Effectively: Part 1

Why numbers are challenging for world language students, and how your instructional approach can make a big difference

My daughter is about to graduate from high school.  She is exactly the type of student teachers love: studious, disciplined, and engaged.  Her GPA is solid.  She has been active in music, at church, and worked a part-time job through high school.  She’s on her way to study nursing.  I’m immensely proud of her.

Oh, also she studied Spanish for 6 years (3 years in middle school and 3 years in high school).  And she still doesn’t know the numbers.

Ok, that’s probably an exaggeration.  She can figure out the numbers. Like, if she wants the number 15, she quietly mouths to herself “diez, once, doce, trece, catorce… QUINCE!”  

“We can greatly impact student mastery by thoughtfully introducing the numbers and by intentionally building number practice through all levels of language instruction.”

If she hears a number - setenta y dos, for example - she says “Wait a minute, wait a minute….”  and then, triumphantly, “seventy two!”   

She told me, “I can figure out any number, but I can only start at 1, 5, or 10.  I HAVE to count them in order.”

How is this possible?  The numbers are so foundational!  Unfortunately, my daughter is not alone.  In my years of teaching world languages I’ve seen many students struggle with mastering the numbers.  There are some theoretical reasons for this, which I’ll discuss in a moment.  Importantly, though, we can greatly impact student mastery by thoughtfully introducing the numbers and by intentionally building number practice through all levels of language instruction.

The Theory

Much of the vocabulary we teach in beginning language classes is concrete. When you hear the words ‘sister’ ‘rice’ or ‘pencil’ you immediately have an image in your mind to attach to the word.  We do teach some abstract vocabulary in level 1-2 - adverbs such as “often” and interrogatives such as “which”, for example.  These theoretical words tend to be more difficult for students to master.

We may think of numbers as very simple, basic concepts - much like the words ‘sister’ or ‘pencil’.  However, numbers are actually theoretical constructs.  When you hear the words “six hundred seventy-three” what image comes to mind?  For most of us, the answer is ‘nothing’!  No image.  (Some very logically-minded individuals, or those taught with a hands-on mathematics approach WILL have an image associated with a number, and these learners tend to be math whizzes!)  Good primary school math instruction emphasizes numeracy so children develop deep understanding of numbers and their connection to real life.  When a child fails to develop this numeracy, it has as detrimental an impact on his or her future education as a child failing to learn to read.

“It’s extremely important to introduce numbers in random order.  If students learn to recite the numbers in order, they will forever be tempted to ‘count up’ to the individual number they need.  ”

In world language classes, we dismiss numbers as being ‘easy’ to our students’ detriment.  Effective language learning connects “concept to target language word”.  However, a lot of our students inadvertently add a third step to their understanding of target language numbers: “concept to numeral to target language”.  Effective world language instructors are aware of this difficulty and take steps to help students eliminate that intermediate step.  

The Practice - A Strong Introduction to Numbers

It’s extremely important to introduce numbers in random order.  If students learn to recite the numbers in order, they will forever be tempted to ‘count up’ to the individual number they need.  

I suggest a Total Physical Response approach to introducing the numbers.  Even if you don’t use TPR regularly, numbers are a great place to incorporate this technique.

Write the numerals on the board, and ask students to copy them on a piece of paper.  Students should make the numbers big - like this.

1        2          3          4         5

6        7          8        9        10

Instruct students to imitate you by pointing at their paper as you point at a number.  Start with any number other than one.  Let’s use three for this example.  As you point at the three and repeat it several times, students should imitate you by pointing at the three on their own paper.

Repeat with a second number - also out of sequence.  Let’s use seven.  Alternate back and forth between three and seven, seven and three.  When students have heard both numbers several times, add a third number.  Continue pronouncing the numbers aloud, randomly.  I like to walk around the classroom and watch students’ fingers to be sure they’re mastering each number as I call it and to adjust my own pacing.  As students become more proficient, I add more numbers and pick up the pace.  Keep adding in numbers until students are able to confidently point at all 10 as they listen.  This may take two or three class periods - about 10-15 minutes of number practice at a time is enough.  

I encourage students to focus on receptive language at this point - the main thing they need is to hear and understand each number.  Sometimes students REALLY want to know how the number is spelled; in this case I explain to the student my reasons for focusing on listening (vs. reading) skills, but if a student is particularly bothered, I might give them a link to a vocabulary list (which is out of order, of course!)

Repeat this number practice each day for about 10 minutes for several class periods.  This may take longer than the traditional method of teaching the numbers sequentially, but in my experience it results in much deeper learning.  Students often express how amazed they are to learn the numbers so quickly and easily in one or two class periods. 

I do eventually share spellings of the numbers with students.  I ask students to recognize, but not to produce the spellings.  This is a judgement call, of course, but as people almost never spell out the numbers in real life I usually choose not to invest the time in this skill.  Instead, I emphasize becoming comfortable with speaking and listening to numbers.

Click to read Part 2 of this Blog Post; practical ideas for teaching numbers

Classroom Application

To really master the target language numbers, students must practice regularly and repeatedly. I’ll discuss some practical ways to do this in Teaching Numbers Effectively: Part 2