Mathematics and Language: A One-to-One Correspondence in Bilingual Environments

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The paper titled "Mathematics and Language: One-to-One Correspondence in 2 Bilingual Environments" is reviewed. A number of related recommendations are presented as follows:

·       Avoiding possessive sentence structures will enable the creation of a more qualified sentence structure.

·       Has it been clearly stated why English was chosen for bilingual education? Or will native and English languages be discussed?

·       The text should be rearranged according to the text and format of the journal.

·       Frankly, it is an expected result that the mathematical problem solving skills of 2nd grade students are better than the previous level. However, the hypotheses indicating why these levels are discussed need to be explained with their reasons and associated with the results section.

·       Since abbreviations in the text are used a lot, I think it would be more appropriate to use an abbreviation table.

·       I think that differences may arise due to the proportions of the numbers in the sample considered statistically. Therefore, additional methods to the sampling method can be used.

·       Instead of suggesting that the study can be applied to students at different levels, it may be suggested to re-do the study adhering to similar sample rates.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The results are not surprising and enriching:

 

There is an excellent probability that the second-year students show greater competence in problem solving regardless of the type of semantic structure in comparison with the first-year students.

 

It is not surprising that students whose language of instruction is the same as their mother tongue have better competence compared to students whose mother tongue differs from the language of instruction and that the number of tasks they are capable of solving is greater.

 

Therefore, I recommend to focus on aspects of the second result and to develop considerations and interpretations of the results presented on page 13.

 

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

This is potentially an interesting study on impact of mathematics instruction in first or additional language. Unfortunately, I do not recommend that is be published in the current form for several reasons.

The introductory literature review that defines bilingualism and situates the study is based too much on outdated research that does not need to be included. While the study is based on a specific bilingual education context, this contextualisation should situate that amongst the variety of bilingual contexts which are well described in much current literature not cited here.

It might be preferable to begin with situating the study as primarily one about a CLIL context and put the issue of bilingualism to the side.

The terminology used in the paper is confusing: the abbreviation L2 is used for language of instruction, but the study is precisely comparing students for whom the language of instruction is an L2 (second language) and those for whom it is an L1 (first language or mother tongue). This needs to be revised throughout so that there is more clarity about MT/L1 learners vs additional language learners. The relevance of the detailed discussion about encoding of languages is not clear.

In 2.1, the sudden focus on the question of the different in 1^st and 2^nd grade results is surprising and has not been justified in the preceding introduction and literature review. This seems like a completely different (unrelated) question to the one about language of instruction.

Throughout sections 2 and 3 the tables are frequently unclear, both in layout and in what data has been chosen to represent. For example, in Table 1, I am not sure why this detailed data on the age data is presented. There is an error in the Spanish SD column that shows n instead.

In section three, there is no narrative interpretation of the results. I am struggling to find any clear statements (rather than just numbers) about which group performed better in which context. Some of the interpretation in Section 4 should be in the results, with the discussion focussing more on the significance. The brief conclusion is very vague.

In the present form, I can’t provide a more detailed scientific review. There are other more minor aspects of the paper that also need work (grammatical expression, certain trains of argument) but really this paper needs to be entirely rewritten, so there is no real point to go through all of them in its present form. I like the fact that there is a lot of Spanish language research cited, but it should be indicated where this is a translation from the English (e.g. Cummins)

It is a shame that the group which had English as MT and Language of instruction was so small – having that group larger would potentially give this study a lot more strength. If there was capacity, I would strongly recommend adding that group.

I do think this is in interesting topic and study which has the potential to be an original contribution, but this would require very extensive re-writing. I’m not sure about the age difference bit – maybe the relevance of that would be clearer after re-writing too but it might not be.

Comments on the Quality of English Language

There are other more minor aspects of the paper that also need work (grammatical expression, certain trains of argument) but really this paper needs to be entirely rewritten, so there is no real point to go through all of them in its present form. 

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

This paper has been revised in line with recommendations and it is now much improved.

The literature review is more focussed and relevant to the study, the goals have been clarified and the findings are more clearly expressed.

There are some points that I would suggest need further revision, but most of these are quite minor.

Lines 102-104: the example given here is not of phonological awareness, but awareness of grammatical construction (more vs more than)

Lines 134-136 Ref [23] “enhances the acquisition of numerical processing as one of the most important predictors of mathematical abilities in adults.” Vs lines 199-200: “Research has demonstrated that problem-solving is a reliable indicator of mathematical competence and cognitive skills in early years [ 35]”. – please clarify authors’ interpretation of relative significance of problem solving and of numerical processing.

There are a couple of places where the two research sites are not described equally:

Line 247: “international school” – is this only the Spanish school? Not clear.

Lines 248-249: Please clarify that student with Portuguese as MT are or are not included in the study

Lines 432-434 ”It is essential to note that students in bilingual programs in the United States utilize methodologies emphasizing peer discussion and hands-on manipulation, diverging from the methodologies employed in Spanish programs.” – please either describe methodologies used in Spain or rewrite more neutrally, for example:

”It is essential to note that teaching methodologies in the United States and in Spain differ; for example methodologies in bilingual programs in the United States utilize peer discussion and hands-on manipulation, whereas Spanish programs do not.”

Please explicitly define language coincidence in the text as being where MT = LI. This can easily be inferred but should be made more explicit.

Presentation of data:

Table 3 has Type/Unknown/Operation in a separate first column – consider doing this for subsequent tables

Some tables have column values that are common to all or nearly all rows (e.g n in Table 5, gl in table 4). Can these be omitted?

In text, can the numbers be omitted, eg, could lines 327-332 simply be:

“Specifically, it is superior in Type - Change, Type - Combination, Type - Comparison,  Unknown – Medium, Unknown – Beginning, Operation – Addition, Operation - Subtraction and Total Score.”

Or even:

“Specifically, it is superior in Types Change, Combination, Comparison,  Unknowns Medium and  Beginning, Operations Addition and Subtraction as well as Total Score.”

And similarly for other places where results are discussed in text.

Please explicitly define language coincidence in the text as being where MT = LI. This can easily be inferred but should be made more explicit.

Line 234: “… cannot occur because it has already occurred” - confusing expression, please rephrase

Line 313: “The results indicate a clear influence of the LI on problem-solving when it aligns with the MT.” please state the influence.

Reviewer 2 states: “It is not surprising that students whose language of instruction is the same as their mother tongue have better competence compared to students whose mother tongue differs from the language of instruction and that the number of tasks they are capable of solving is greater. “ and the authros’ responses was “True, but we have tried to measure empirically what the difference was and found that about one year”.

I can’t find this stated in the text – it would be good to put it in. Which are the numbers for this claim?

Line 547: and grammar.

Comments on the Quality of English Language

Mostly clear, I have indicated a few points of expression to clarify

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf