Learning from English and Kuwaiti children’s transcoding errors: how might number names be temporarily adapted to assist learning of place value?

This study identifies language specific errors made with transcoding tasks to inform possible future pedagogic decisions regarding the language used when teaching early number. We compared children aged 5-7 years from Kuwait and England. The spoken Arabic language of Kuwait gave the opportunity to compare not only languages where the tens and units digits are said in a different order, but also where the direction of writing is different. We asked 396 children from Kuwait and 256 children from England to write down 2-, and 3-digit numbers which were spoken to them. We found that the direction of the language did not affect the nature of errors made, but that other aspects of the two languages could account for some of the differences we found. As well as supporting previous studies regarding the significance of the order in which the tens and units are said, we found significance in the role the word and can play in marking the number of digits involved. We also noted that the way the numbers 20, 100 and 200 are said in Arabic can set up particular symbolic associations which could account for other differences we found. Having identified language-specific errors, we discuss possible pedagogic decisions to temporarily use more regular language for the number names in each of the languages and propose the order in which number names are taught might be different to their mathematical order of magnitude.