If chemistry is anything I would say it’s a language first, then a science. If you really think about it, there’s loads of vocabulary terms in chemistry! And getting consistent vocabulary practice can happen EVERY DAY if you just know how to place it in your chemistry lessons.
Define in Your Own Terms/Words
Chemistry definitions are REALLY tough to understand. Electronegativity first off, sounds like a made up word. And then the definition: the attraction of electrons in a bond? Well what does that even mean?! Especially since most of us teach that term during the periodic table unit BEFORE we teach bonding.
I like to redefine most chemistry terms in my own words. Electronegativity is “the tug of war over shared electrons.” Vapor pressure is “the willingness to evaporate and become a gas.” Redefining terms helps students to understand what they actually mean in real life terms.
I also like to have the students define the tough vocabulary terms in their own words. I like to do this as a Do Now or Bell Ringer activity. It’s a great warm up for the kids. But there’s one more amazing part. You get to listen to what the students THINK this word means, and you can make corrections before the mistakes are really deep and difficult to fix.
You can read more about how I choose my vocabulary terms in this post.
Turn and Teach
This is a WAY better version of turn and talk. We all know the chaos that quickly arises when kids are asked to talk to each other. Especially when the verbiage is “talk.” I first read about this strategy in Whole Brain Teaching. I’m not sure I’d recommend many of the strategies to high school chemistry teachers, but the turn and teach is gold. Students turn to a partner. One is the student, and the other is the teacher. The teacher obviously teaches what they JUST LEARNED to the student. They’ll swap roles throughout the class. This forces kids to put chemistry into their own words, and to hear the content a second time.
The book talks about teaching for five minutes, then do the turn and teach, then you teach again, and then the kids turn and teach swapping roles. It can get to be a lot if you do this often. I try to strategically pick this strategy for concepts that are tougher (like redox) or for vocabulary terms. In fact, the first time I used this strategy was in redox – voltaic cells specifically. One of my students turned to me during class and said, “[expletive] this is actually working.” Language aside, I was excited to hear this, especially after getting an eye roll about it!
Be Annoying
EVERY time a chemistry vocabulary term comes up, make your students define it. When you do solutions and have to reteach what an ionic compound is – ask a student. When you do acids and bases, and reteach bonding, ask a student to redefine. I really love the idea of being intentionally annoying. I mean, who doesn’t love to annoy teenagers?! But in all seriousness, they say you have to see an ad 7 times before you buy something that YOU WANT. How many times will my students (who don’t always want to buy chemistry) have to hear a definition before it sticks? It’s a very easy way to build in vocabulary practice in your chemistry lessons, while hitting the mark on asking questions.
Vocabulary Homework and Quizzes
At the beginning of a unit I give students a list of vocabulary terms for that unit. In fact, they’ll get that list as soon as they are done with a unit test. While their classmates are still testing, they flip to the back of their notebooks to their glossary and start handwriting terms and definitions. One, it keeps the class quiet while we’re testing, and two it’s a decently easy homework assignment. I love it for chemistry vocabulary practice. It’s also great for special needs students and English language learners to get a preview of terms before moving into learning.
They have to handwrite because typing and printing is not at all the same for their brains. I spent hours putting together a glossary that was printable for my chemistry students, and then getting it to fit in their chemistry interactive notebooks. Worth it.
I give 3 to 5 days to write all the terms and definitions, depending on how many there are. Then students must line up at my desk and show me their notebook. I give them a grade and immediately drop it in my gradebook. It’s an easy 100 for them, which I love, but it also helps them to prepare for their vocabulary quiz.
I give matching quizzes to my students with 10 selected terms from their lists. No retakes on these, since it just becomes a guessing game. But this whole system helps to keep my students far more accountable and on top of actually learning the language of chemistry. It’s an easy way to force my students to get some chemistry vocabulary practice.
Use a Vocabulary Game
Like I mentioned, kids need consistent vocabulary practice in chemistry in order to ACTUALLY learn the terms. The class content on its own is super hard, but it’s even harder if you don’t understand the language of chemistry. To help with that, I like to give my students loads of practice during class time. Right now, I use a lot of devices to practice vocabulary with my students. We fit these in when my lessons are just a little too short, students finish something early, or I’m out and they have a substitute.
We use crosswords, joke decipher puzzles, flash cards and dominoes. Crosswords are pretty straight forward, so I’ll describe the other three.
Joke Deciphers
The joke decipher puzzles are one of my favorites! Students are given a very corny chemistry joke and 10 definitions. They fill in the correct vocabulary term and certain letters will be transcribed to the bottom of the page to get the punchline of the joke. Honestly, they kind of hate these, but that’s because the jokes are so bad. But it’s not a chemistry joke if it’s not a dad joke, right?
Flash Cards Game
The flash cards have the term on the front and the definition on the back. We turn them into a game! For the game, I only print the fronts of the flash cards, so they don’t have definitions. Pairs of students take turns. The first will draw a card and say anything but the vocabulary term to get the second student to guess the term. So if the term is electron, they’ll say something like “it’s negative” “it’s in an atom” “it’s a subatomic particle.” We time this for one minute, then the students swap roles. Whichever pair of students gets the most terms correct in their collective two minutes wins.
You could also print the vocabulary terms and definitions on different sheets of paper, (not front and back). Then you can line them face down in a grid and play memory! This is more of a solo activity, unless you have students take turns flipping pairs of cards. We don’t use this one that often, simply because it requires me to have two sets of flash cards (some with definitions and some without). Certainly a great thing to have students do at home, or an activity set aside for those few students who consistently finish up their classwork quickly.
Dominoes
These are printed on paper and then cut out. I’ve made little paper dominoes with terms on one half and definitions on the other half of the domino. Students line them up, typically racing the clock. This is not that fun on it’s own, but I like to have students race the clock, or do this in a row race. To do that, the four students in a row (or at a lab bench) will line up and take turns at the task. Once a student’s turn is over, they go to the back of the line to wait for their classmates to take their turn. During a student’s turn, they may place a new domino or fix an already placed domino. This is a lot more fun when you make the students play without talking. That’s just my secret teacher tip to you.
You can buy my ENTIRE vocabulary pack here! It includes two versions of my glossary and 15 of everything! Vocab lists, quizzes, dominoes, flash cards, joke deciphers, and flash cards. It’s everything you need for a whole year of chemistry vocabulary practice for your students.
