Teaching Math to English Language Learners: Can Research Help?

It seems almost unbelievable now, but many people in education used to think that mathematics classes in English would be easy for English language learners (ELLs) because math was less language-dependent than other subjects, as it dealt with numbers. When I was a bilingual teacher in the 1970s, it was routinely recommended that bilingual students be placed in math as their first mainstream subject. People really believed that math was nonverbal.