Abstract:

Mathematics teaches students to think logically, solve real-world problems, and be accurate. Despite the fact that it is needed in every area of life, it is often uninteresting and incomprehensible for them. Teachers are constantly looking for new possibilities and ways how to bring mathematics closer to students and how to win their favour for mathematics. They realize that no reform in education will improve this situation. They themselves have to use their creativity and ability to apply new methods and forms in the learning/teaching process.
Present reality speaks for the fact that students who enter the universities are less and less prepared for studying mathematics. Our university prepares also teachers of Mathematics and English for their future career. During their lessons of didactics they are trained how to present mathematic tasks in an attractive way, using also their good knowledge of English.

CLIL and using mathematical corpus when learning mathematical terminology and relations are considered to be inspiring activating methods in teaching mathematics at our faculty and university. CLIL as such has already been used in the teaching process in three primary schools in Žilina.

Based on our fruitful cooperation with Martinská and St. Gorazd primary schools in Žilina, we have evaluated the teachers' experience with these methods of teaching mathematics when working with pupils of all different years of study. At the same time, we have compared the study results attained by the pupils taught using CLIL (or mathematical corpus) with the results of pupils taught by traditional methods.
An online survey questionnaire sent to more than 70 primary schools existing in the region of Žilina aimed to find out if the teachers of mathematics working in these schools have at least the basic knowledge of CLIL as well as mathematical corpus analysis. During the process of the data analysis we were also observing implementation of this knowledge into the educational environment of primary schools, interest of the teachers in these methods, support given to the teachers by their superiors and possibilities of future training of teachers aimed at acquiring competencies to work with the mentioned teaching methods.

On the basis of the obtained research results we have come to the conclusion that applying methods of CLIL and mathematical corpus analysis in the process of preparation of future teachers, especially those who are specifically qualified to be teachers of Mathematics and English Language and Literature, can become motivating, inspiring, refreshing and promising factor.

Keywords:

Education, mathematics teaching, CLIL, mathematical corpus.