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Chemial Element Pronunciation Sheet is an alphabetical listing of elements 1-111 with their symbols and phonetic spellings that I adapted from dictionary listings. I require every level of my high school chemistry students to pronounce each element correctly; I don't count it much on their test and it makes them feel more intelligent to be able to roll out names such as "americium."
I introduce the list by giving them the handout, then produce an overhead or powerpoint showing the list. I then run through some or all of them, having them repeat after me. Go really fast and they enjoy it (have them repeat the tough ones several times over before continuing); some are real tongue twisters.
Chemical Element FunQuest is an accompanying small-group exercise I use after handing out the Pronunciation sheet; it contains a number of fun "definitions" whose answers are chemical element names (such as "What you do when your dog dies": barium). I find they not only have fun together with the exercise, but get a great deal of practice in surveying the elements and pronuncing the names to each other.
Free to upload if you'd like is a listing of the elements that I use when testing them. I circulate through the room while they are quietly working on another written test. I point horizontally to a row containing an easy, medium, and hard-to-pronounce element, and they get a check mark for each they pronounce correctly. For the next student I drop down a row.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.5 License.
I wish that I had this as a student - and now as a Chemistry teacher I will make sure that my students will not have to struggle with pronunciations like I did!
May 24, 2007
My experience includes 28 years teaching secondary science in public and private high schools, including work with severely emotionally disturbed adolescents in a hospital setting, affluent students in a private school setting, homeschool students, and most recently public school students. Of the last 12 years, I've taught two years in a very large affluent suburban high school with privileged students, but most recently my passion has been to work with a large low income minority population in the outskirts of Atlanta. Most recently I have taught Chemistry and AP Chemistry, with some Physics and Physical Science. Through the years I have also taught Earth Science, Anatomy and Physiology, Biology, Genetics, and Microbiology. I have also served as Science Division Chair at our high school, and served on a number of curriculum and test writing teams on a local and state level.
