Compulsory Education Phase Mathematical Symbols Teaching Research

Russell once said:"What is mathematics? Mathematics is a combination of symbols and logic." Mathematical symbols are important parts as well as languages of mathematics. Therefore, mathematics teaching must pay attention to the teaching of mathematical symbols. However, the teaching of mathematical symbols in compulsory education is limited to a summary the teaching experience, while a systematic and comprehensive investigation is still in shortage. So it is necessary to study student’s learning of mathematical symbols in compulsory education so as to provide suggestions for education workers to better implement the new curriculum reform.This study is targeted at primary students who are using math textbooks by The People’s Education Press and middle school students who are using math textbooks by Hunan Education Publishing House. It takes348students from five cities in Hunan Province during the stage of compulsory education as samples and investigates their situation of mathematical symbols learning. The data were processed with SPSS and students’problem of understanding, expressing and writing mathematical symbols were analyzed. The investigation shows that students in compulsory education have some problems in understanding, expressing and writing stills mathematical symbols. The problems mainly manifest on:inflexible use, lack of deep understanding of the essence, slow association, unclear expression and random spelling of mathematical symbols, etc.At the same time, we interviewed12math teachers in the stage of compulsory education and put forward suggestions for the teaching of mathematical symbols. We hold that in order to improve the teaching of mathematical symbols, teachers should emphasize on teaching the necessity of introducing as well as understanding mathematical symbols. Also, teachers should be strict with students’ standard writing of mathematical symbols and gradually cultivate students’mathematical symbols awareness.