Many of us are familiar with the term “Math Anxiety” because we often hear it among students that fear the subject Mathematics. The formal definition of math anxiety as defined by Tobias (1993) is a feeling of nervousness or worriedness that creates tension, therefore preventing someone, usually a student in a college-community setting, to manipulate numbers and solve mathematical problems without panic, paralysis, and mental disorganization. Math anxiety is acknowledged by psychologists around the globe because of a large number of students that are experiencing it. Most students lose their nerves when they hear the word “Math” maybe because Math is considered as one of the hardest and one of the most important subject throughout one’s academic
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What they learn in Math are not applicable in English and that invokes a sense of panic.
Mathematics relatively has its own language that is popularly called “math lingo”. It is called math lingo instead of math language because it is not a complete language- it is a jargon (Hersh, 1997). Learning Math is just like learning another type of language and shifting between plain English and math lingo is not easy therefore confusion often arises because of this. Mathematical word problems are not understandable in the context of English language (Hancewicz, Hever, Kenny, Metsisto, & Tuttle, 2005). Math majors solve word problems logically unlike English majors that treat the words literally. For example, a math major is asked to express that there are thrice as many female students as to male students in the ENG2 X last semester. The math major will answer 3M=F, where F represents the female students and M represents the male students. However, in the …show more content…
English is usually tied by expression while Math is usually tied by analysis and logic (Carbine, 2013). Thus, the difference between English and Math is evident and it creates unbalanced harmony between the math students, hence the english anxiety. Actually, the skill comprehension reading applies both to English and Math but used in a different way. Math majors comprehend what they read logically or formulate the easiest way to solve the problem while English majors simply just have to understand the material in order to catch the emotion written in the
What they learn in Math are not applicable in English and that invokes a sense of panic.
Mathematics relatively has its own language that is popularly called “math lingo”. It is called math lingo instead of math language because it is not a complete language- it is a jargon (Hersh, 1997). Learning Math is just like learning another type of language and shifting between plain English and math lingo is not easy therefore confusion often arises because of this. Mathematical word problems are not understandable in the context of English language (Hancewicz, Hever, Kenny, Metsisto, & Tuttle, 2005). Math majors solve word problems logically unlike English majors that treat the words literally. For example, a math major is asked to express that there are thrice as many female students as to male students in the ENG2 X last semester. The math major will answer 3M=F, where F represents the female students and M represents the male students. However, in the …show more content…
English is usually tied by expression while Math is usually tied by analysis and logic (Carbine, 2013). Thus, the difference between English and Math is evident and it creates unbalanced harmony between the math students, hence the english anxiety. Actually, the skill comprehension reading applies both to English and Math but used in a different way. Math majors comprehend what they read logically or formulate the easiest way to solve the problem while English majors simply just have to understand the material in order to catch the emotion written in the