“Let’s Have Fun with Math in English!”

Abstract

In Korea, parents and students are becoming ever more enthusiastic about learning English as this lingua franca is often required in order to enter good schools, and the pressure to begin learning English from a very young age is an ever growing concern. How should Young Learners (YLs) most effectively be exposed to English. The school at which I teach is moving towards a Content Based approach (CBI) to English teaching. According to this model, once students have taken studied their core elementary subjects in the L1, they will then practice familiar content through communicative activities in English. In response to the needs of the developing CBI program at my school, I have created a math textbook for fifteen first grade primary school students. The main goal of this textbook is to help students improve their English proficiency by engaging in diverse activities in which they learn about math in English kinesthetically and tactilely. At this young age is it of the utmost importance to engage YLs in fun and stimulating activities.