Activity 4: Learning Strategies for Students with Limited English Proficiency

1. Point out new vocabulary in context. Practice using the words as much as possible.

2. To help students understand the difference between exponential growth
(2, 4, 8, 16, 32…) and arithmetic growth (1, 2, 3, 4, 5…) you may wish to remind them of the student that convinced his parents that they can pay his allowance in pennies. The first week he would take one penny, and each week after they would double the number of pennies. That is, the second week he would get two pennies, the third week he would get four pennies, and so on. Ask them how they would prefer to get paid–using the penny method or at $50 per week for one year.
Then ask the students to calculate how much they would get at the end of a year using both methods. Explain that this is the difference between exponential growth and arithmetic growth. You may choose to refer to exponential growth simply as doubling.

3. Numbers such as those in the thousands of millions (billions) are difficult for students and most adults to comprehend. You may wish to share some of the following examples with your students:

In his book called How Much Is a Million? David Schwartz shares this observation: “How big is a billion? If a billion kids made a human tower, they would stand up past the moon. If you sat down to count from one to one billion, you would be counting for 95 years. If you found a goldfish bowl large enough to hold a billion goldfish, it would be as big as a stadium.”

An advertising agency shared these calculations:
– A billion seconds ago, it was 1964.
– A billion minutes ago, Jesus was alive.
– A billion hours ago, our ancestors were living in the Stone Age.
– A billion dollars ago was only 8 hours and 20 minutes, at the rate Washington spends it.

You may wish students to add to this list with their own calculations.