Translating a Linguistic Understanding of Chemistry to Outcome Achievement and Interdisciplinary Relevance in the Introductory Classroom

摘要

A recent report from the United States Census Bureau states that "the number and percentage of people in the United States who spoke a language other than English at home in-creased between 1990 and 2000" (1).This characteristic was most prevalent among those 5-17 years of age,according to data from the 2000 U.S.Census (2).Increasingly,then,edu-cators at the secondary level will be teaching a multilingual student population.These demographics,coupled with the likelihood that many students will be required to study a for-eign language,provide an opportunity for introductory chem-istry teachers to exploit the uniquely linguistic characteristics of their discipline,with the aim of increasing achievement of existing student outcomes.