"Results from hierarchical linear model (HLM) with students nested within schools demonstrated three key findings: (a) competitive learning had a statistically significant positive though small relationship with mathematics performance in all four countries, (b) cooperative learning had a statistically significant positive though small relationship with mathematics performance in the three East Asian countries but not in the USA, and (c) the relationship between competitive learning and mathematics performance was as strong as the relationship between cooperative learning and mathematics performance across the three East Asian countries.
Although American students are stronger competitive and cooperative learners than their East Asian peers, they are not effective users of either learning style for the improvement of mathematics performance likely because of the way that both learning styles are practiced in American mathematics classrooms. Teacher education may hold the key to improve the educational practice of different learning styles as a strategy to improve mathematics performance of students in the USA and beyond."
It has nothing to do with language, its both the education system itself, the pedagogy style of the teacher, the emphasis on mathematics earlier in life, and the culture of competition fostered within schools. When First and Second generation East Asian students come to the US, they are often placed in competitive schools and reared by adults who were also educated in these schools, not to mention the immigration standards set by the US that make it so the parents of these students are usually educated at the undergraduate level at least.
Colder nations tend to be Northern nations, and I'm sure you're aware of the disparity between the North and the South.
Have you figured it out yet?
