I have experience teaching courses across multiple departments including linguistics, applied English, and communication sciences and disorders. Throughout these semesters, I refined my teaching style and goals through the mentorship of tenured faculty in each department.
I prefer a “call and answer” style where the course is more of a discussion rather than a lecture to be memorized. This style is easier for me to gauge both student engagement and student understanding. For example, when teaching a lesson with novel vocabulary (e.g. Place, voice and manner features in phonology), I embed very quick questions to check understanding throughout the room. Additionally, I provide students with a means to connect with the material by including prompts to “guess” what the upcoming content will be before I present it. These tactics offer students the opportunity to engage with the material in an entertaining way, but also offers me the ability to examine errors or confusion my students may have in real time, through the analysis of their responses—correct or otherwise. I then tailor my presentation of these concepts to fit the students’ current understanding.
My goal in teaching is to make the course content interesting, memorable and relatable through the use of familiar analogies or examples. In order to meet this goal, I seek out videos, real-world examples, and even comics to assist me in reinforcing course materials. In this line, as a researcher, I always include “permission to use audio/video for teaching purposes” in my parental consent forms, because one of the best ways to teach a pre-service speech-therapist is to show them what kids on their caseload will look like and to allow them to explore these cases in a supportive environment. As a researcher in speech sound disorders, I consistently make note of how speech samples I gather could be used in an educational context.
To conclude, I am prepared to teach courses in the area of speech science, phonetics, child phonology, and child language, and look forward to expanding my experience as an assistant professor. Furthermore, my background in linguistics provides me with a unique perspective in bilingualism, and, I am prepared to teach courses in this area as a secondary interest. My background in teaching linguistics courses, and my directed teaching experience in the Acoustics of Speech provided me with opportunities to learn how I teach, and how I can be effective, prior to entering a more independent position.
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