Language Across Curriculum – Cross-curricular Project between the English and Mathematics Departments

Name of Organizing Body: 
English and Mathematics Departments

This year, the English Department collaborated with the Mathematics Department to hold a series of cross-curricular lessons for our S.2 students. Many students are good at Mathematics in our school; however, some of them may not get their expected results in tests and examinations because of language problems. We hope that through these lessons, language teachers can offer more linguistic support to the students so that they can have a better grasp of Mathematics topics, and more importantly understand the role language plays in different subjects.

The topics covered were “Teenage problems” in English and “More about statistical graphs” in Mathematics. Students were asked to identify the common teenage problems, design a questionnaire to collect data, analyze the data using mathematical concepts and finally present the findings of the analysis. 

In English lessons, teachers taught students how to use appropriate language to describe the common teenage problems teenagers face today and the solutions to the problems. They were then asked to design questions by using appropriate question phrases for the questionnaire to find out the common problems faced by Hong Kong teenagers of different age groups. In Mathematics lessons, students were taught how to construct and interpret different statistical graphs. They were then asked to apply the knowledge learnt to analyze the data collected from the questionnaire and present them in graphical format. In the final stage, language teachers taught them how to describe graphs in words and how to write a letter of advice to explain to the teenage problems to the government.

Finally, students presented their results during the Knowledge Fair held in early July. This kind of cross-curricular lessons is well-received by our students as they think they can understand the linkage between the two subjects.