Skip to content
Talent East Academy
Sign up
← All articles

Research

Maths is language too: what research says about tutoring newcomers

Many newcomer students are perfectly good at maths, yet get stuck on the language of the question. What does research tell us about small-group tutoring, the language of maths and the place of the home language?

October 2026 · 7 min read

What small-group tutoring achieves

Tutoring in small groups or one-on-one is among the best-studied ways of helping students move forward. A large meta-analysis of dozens of randomised experiments found an average effect of 0.29 standard deviations [1]; in education research, that counts as a substantial effect. Results were strongest for programmes with at least three sessions a week, with teachers or trained paraprofessionals as tutors, and in the younger grades [1]. The UK's Education Endowment Foundation estimates that small-group tuition adds around four months of extra progress over a school year on average, and one-to-one tuition around five [2][3]. To be fair, the estimates are lower for maths and for secondary school, and most of the research comes from the United States and the United Kingdom [1][2][3]. Volunteer tutors also do best with training and a clear structure [3]. Tutoring is no miracle cure, then, but it is one of the most promising things you can do.

When a sum turns into a reading test

Students who have only recently arrived can often calculate well, yet stumble over the words around the sum. Long word problems and school phrases such as 'determine', 'increases by' or 'what percentage less' can make a task harder for a second-language learner than the maths itself. Research backs this up. In a US study with 1,174 students aged around thirteen, researchers took existing test items and wrote parallel versions in simpler language, with the same maths [4]. Students who were still learning English scored lower than peers who were fluent. The simplified items produced slightly higher scores, especially for English learners, students in lower-level maths classes and students from lower-income families [4]. German researchers point out that it is not a migration background or multilingualism as such that is most strongly linked to maths achievement, but proficiency in the language of schooling [5]. For a newcomer, a low test score does not always say much about mathematical ability.

The language of maths can be learned

The good news is that language need not remain a wall. In Dortmund, Susanne Prediger and Lena Wessel designed a fractions programme for students of roughly first-year secondary age who were learning German as a second language and struggling with maths [5]. Of 72 participants, half received six 90-minute lessons, always in pairs with one student teacher. The lessons deliberately moved between everyday language ('my piece is bigger'), school language ('the part of the whole') and technical terms ('the denominator'), and between drawings and symbols. Students did much of the explaining themselves and were helped to make their own words more precise, step by step. Their understanding of fractions grew clearly more than in the comparison group [5]. The researchers themselves are cautious: the sample was small, there was no long-term follow-up, and success depended heavily on how well the tutor responded to what a student said at the right moment [5].

The home language and a familiar face

Multilingualism is often treated as a problem. Researcher Judit Moschkovich sees it differently: bilingual students draw on far more than technical vocabulary to reason mathematically, including everyday experience, gestures and drawings, as well as their other language [6]. If we listen only for the correct word in the school language, she argues, we miss part of what a student already understands. Her work is mainly descriptive, so it cannot tell us exactly how much the home language adds, but it makes the case for starting from what a student can do rather than what is missing [6]. The tutoring research also shows that regularity matters: the best results come from programmes with fixed, frequent sessions [1][2][3]. And because good support depends on responding to what a student can and cannot yet put into words [5], it helps when a tutor gets to know that student over time.

References

  1. [1]Nickow, A., Oreopoulos, P., & Quan, V. (2024). The promise of tutoring for PreK–12 learning: A systematic review and meta-analysis of the experimental evidence. American Educational Research Journal, 61(1), 74–107. doi.org/10.3102/00028312231208687
  2. [2]Education Endowment Foundation. (n.d.). Small group tuition. Teaching and Learning Toolkit. London: Education Endowment Foundation. educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk/education-evidence/teaching-learning-toolkit/small-group-tuition
  3. [3]Education Endowment Foundation. (n.d.). One to one tuition. Teaching and Learning Toolkit. London: Education Endowment Foundation. educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk/education-evidence/teaching-learning-toolkit/one-to-one-tuition
  4. [4]Abedi, J., & Lord, C. (2001). The language factor in mathematics tests. Applied Measurement in Education, 14(3), 219–234. doi.org/10.1207/S15324818AME1403_2
  5. [5]Prediger, S., & Wessel, L. (2013). Fostering German-language learners’ constructions of meanings for fractions—design and effects of a language- and mathematics-integrated intervention. Mathematics Education Research Journal, 25(3), 435–456. doi.org/10.1007/s13394-013-0079-2
  6. [6]Moschkovich, J. (2002). A situated and sociocultural perspective on bilingual mathematics learners. Mathematical Thinking and Learning, 4(2–3), 189–212. doi.org/10.1207/S15327833MTL04023_5

These articles are editorial summaries of published research, written by the foundation. Talent East Academy is not a care provider and gives no medical or psychological advice. If you are worried about a young person, contact a GP or the school.