Lavine1 G. lonescui New Mexico Highlands University Las Vegas. 87701
Teaching of Introductory Chemistry in Spanish to Bilingual Students
An increasing awareness of the way of life and the prohlems faced by some of America's ethnic minorities has develonnd durine the last decade. As a result of this awareness, the desirability and need for bilingual education also hecame evident. In eeneral. bilineual education attemots to eliminate the difficulties' encountered by non-~nglish sneakine students.. esueciallv a t the elementary and secon. darv c11w1 levc.l,, by using a language of inatrurticm uther than Endish. The hasic orerniie is tlt.af rhe student will de" velop better his cognitive and psychomotor learning process under these condition^.^-' Some approaches to bilingual education involve an eventual complete transition to the use of English as the student acquires adequate and necessary language skills. As part of an overall effort to improve the education of our students and to help train teachers better equipped to deal with the problems of bilingual education, we offered a one-quarter introductory chemistry course in Spanish a t New Mexico Higlands University. T o the best of our knowledge, this has been the first instance when a course in a discipline besides foreign languages has been taught in a language other than English a t NMHU. The course was intended to he equivalent to similar courses for nonmajors a t other universities and to give the student an overall view of the concepts and applications of chemistry. The student bodv a t New Mexico Hinhlands University i s n t the present t:me predominantly Ilexican or Spanish American. TIw student5 arc mainly descendantj of Spanish and Mexican settlers that colonized northern New Mexico during the 17th and 18th centuries. Their knowledge of Spanish is rather rudimentary and is usually limited to a simple vocabulary necessary for conversation in the home and terms used in the daily life of an agricultural and ranching community. The language itself is closer to 16th century Spanish, hut it differs from place to place and shows varying degrees of influence of the current vernacular spoken in Mexico and of English. Many students come from relatively poor school districts, where the instruction especially in the sciences leaves a lot to he desired, hut most of them have studied Spanish as a foreign language in high school and a t least possess reading and some writing abilities. The main objectives of our course were to familiarize the students with some of the basic concepts in chemistry, since many of them had not previously been exposed to this area of endeavor, and to help them acquire new language skills in Spanish. The textbook used was Choppin, Jaffe, Summerlin, and Jackson." The material treated covered about ten chapters selected a t random from the text and included such topics as an historical account of the development of chemistry, properties and states of matter, gas laws, chemical properties and changes, atomic theory of matter, electronic configuration of the elements, periodicity, oxidation states, chemical formulas and equations, the mole, chemical bonding, and aspects of organic, nuclear, and biochemistry. The nine laboratory experiments performed more or less paralleled the lecture material. The lecture and most of the conversation in class were carried out in Spanish. English was used only occasionally to clarify certain concepts and to give the corresponding English word for scientific or technical terms. Most of the procedures for the laboratory experiments were translated
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250 / Journal of Chemical Education
into Spanish and it was the language of choice during the sessions. The examinations were written only in Spanish hut the students were allowed to use either language in their answers. The maioritv . - alwavs chose to use Spanish and in a few cases some questions were answered in English while others in Spanish. No student ever used only English on his examinations and only very seldom was a mixture of emoloved hoth laneuaees " . - for the same answer. At the heginning of the term the students were usually reluctant to express themselves in Spanish, but as the quarter progressed, all attained a certain degree of confidence and were conversing ,freely during the discussion periods and felt a t ease asking questions. Months later, during occasional encounters on campus, many of the students made a special effort to carry on informal conversations in Spanish and appeared to show a certain degree of pride in their ability. The use of Spanish presented no particular difficulties and in no way hindered or limited the amount of material discussed. T h e mastery of the subject that the students achieved was usually higher than in the corresponding sections taught in English. This was probably due to the students' hieher deeree of motivation and to more individualized attention received. The enrollment for similar chemistry courses in English a t NMHU ranged from 60-80 students, while that of the sections in Spanish was about onetenth of that number. T h e majority of the students were Mexican- or Spanish-Americans anxious to learn chemistiy and Soanish. Occasionallv there was a foreien student from ati in-~merica or an " ~ n ~ l o - ~ m e r i c awho n " grew up in northern New Mexico. The reason for the low enrollment can he attributed mainly to an initial apprehension about taking chemistry in a language that one "was not supposed to know well" and to the erroneous helief that chemistry would be harder in Spanish. The opportunity to enroll in the course was open to all students and most of the freshmen and sophmores were made aware of its offering by a special notice, in addition t o the usual channels of information such as local newspapers, departmental notices, schedules, and consultations with advisors. The exnerience " eained in such a course is uniaue and in addition to the improvement of knowledge of the subject matter and laneuaee skills. it also leads to strenethenine of the s e l f - c o n f i d k e a n d self-esteem of these st&ents, who often have been socially and economically deprived. The initial apprehension mentioned above can easily he overcome during the course of a few years, if genuine interest and motivation exist.
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Present address: Chemistry Department, University of Detroit, Detroit, Michigan 48221. Peal, E., and Lambert, W. E., Psychal. Monographs, No. 546 (1962).
"offietti, J. P., J. Educ. Psych., 46,220 (1955). 'Valencia, A. A,, "Bilingual-Bicultural Education for the Spanish-English Bilingual," New Mexico Highlands University Press, Las Vegaq N.M., 1972. "hoppin, G. R., Jaffe, B. Summerlin, L., and Jackson, L., "Quimiea-Niuel A," Puhlicaciones Cultural S. A,, Mexico, D. F., 1972.
