Carmen Jany

Fall 2006

Certificate in College and University Teaching Portfolio

CV

Websites

• Mixe
  Dictionary
• Ling 101
• Span 2
• Span 3
• German 3

Professional Development at the University of California, Santa Barbara

Teaching Associate Experience

(Letter from Mentor)

I have always enjoyed my teaching experiences at the University of California, Santa Barbara, but teaching my own course and designing the syllabus, lesson plans, and course materials for it was the most rewarding experience, especially because I was teaching a course in my own discipline (linguistics) and in one of my fields of expertise (structural linguistics from a functional‑typological perspective). Ever since I knew that I needed a teaching associate appointment for my Certificate in College and University teaching, I was a little concerned, because the department of linguistics does not offer many opportunities for such a position. In winter 2006 one of the professors had an accident at the beginning of the quarter and was not able to continue teaching his course. I was asked if I would like to teach the class and accepted immediately. I took over Linguistics 101: Basic Elements of Linguistic Analysis in the third week of the quarter and taught it for eight weeks, and I was delighted to have been given permission by professor Mackie to use this for CCUT requirement 4.

Linguistics 101 is an upper division course which builds on the introductory course Linguistics 20: Language and Linguistics. In linguistics, each course concerned with the structure of languages is taught in the same way, starting with the smallest structural element, namely the sound, and ending with larger structural elements, such as phrases and discourse. Hence, phonetics and phonology is always treated first, then morphology, and then syntax. Given this, the major elements of Linguistics 101 and the sequence in which they are introduced is dictated by the discipline rather than it being up to the instructor (see appendix A). The professor who started teaching Linguistics 101 had developed only a general syllabus for the class, simply following this sequence of topics. When I took over, I left the main outline of the course the same, but designed details of the syllabus to fit students’ needs, incorporated electronic resources, and was able to contribute my own experience working with many different languages as well as my typological expertise to the class. I also redesigned one of the course goals to fit more recent theories of linguistic analysis in accord with the department’s approach to linguistics. Rather than focusing on ‘conveying a sense of possible or impossible human language’ I used only data from real languages in class in order to let the students discover the structures actually found in the world’s languages. I also exchanged one of the topics that the professor had originally planned for the last part of the course, given his expertise in that area, for topics in my area of expertise. While he planned to introduce historical linguistics, which is not part of the originally approved outline of the course, I concentrated more on providing students with a solid foundation in synchronic linguistics and on showing them the great diversity of structures found in the world’s languages. Synchronic linguistics is rich enough to cover the entire course and it nicely builds up from smaller to bigger structures, while historical linguistics would go back to smaller structures. When I discussed this with my mentor she thought that it was a good idea to focus on synchronic linguistics, especially since the students had missed the second week of class given the professor’s accident. Before taking over Linguistics 101 I met with my mentor and discussed the syllabus, the changes I wanted to make, and the idea of using the course management site Moodle for the class. My mentor agreed to all my suggestions. My syllabus (see appendix A) is quite simple, given that the course materials were embedded in Moodle. I also discussed the students’ levels and prerequisites for the class with my mentor. This first meeting gave me the confidence I needed to teach the class and it provided me with a clear picture of the students backgrounds and previous knowledge. At first, my syllabus was very ambitious, but after this initial meeting I decided to adjust it to fit the students’ levels. For example, I thought that I would be able to cover discourse structure towards the end of the course. My mentor told me that this would be very nice, but that it is hardly possible to cover that much in a quarter. As a result, I decided to remove it from the syllabus. I kept in close contact with my mentor during that quarter and sent her lesson plans, homework exercises, the midterm, and the final exam for review. In general, she was very happy with my materials. Her only concern was that some of the materials were too advanced for the students. After receiving her feedback, I simplified some of the exercises and the exams. Overall, it was very helpful to have a mentor during that period, who had a lot of experience teaching that same class.

Using the course management site Moodle for Linguistics 101 was very useful. I posted links to relevant sites, handouts covering the topics discussed in class, review sheets for exams, and created even a small glossary with definitions of terminology. Towards the end of the quarter I asked the students if they had found the Moodle site useful. Most of them told me that it was a great resource. In particular, they liked the review sheets for exams and the glossary. They also enjoyed a link to a website where they could listen to all the sounds found in the world’s languages. As the instructor, I was able to see how often students entered the site. Some used it multiple times per week.

In sum, I believe that I managed well to create my own class and to take over a course which begun with a different professor, generally a difficult task. My teaching style was quite different from the professor’s who originally started teaching the class. He prepared problem sets for the class and lectured without any notes, given his extensive teaching experience. I created many handouts (appendix B), made extensive use of new technology, provided students with correct solutions to problems sets after discussing them in class (on the board or by posting them on Moodle) as well as with clear definitions for each term introduced in class (on handouts or in Moodle), and I conducted systematic recycling of previously treated materials at the beginning of each class. The students appreciated my teaching style and the change and expressed this in their evaluation comments (appendix F).