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The Importance of Linguistics for Teachers
The teacher is a major factor in shaping students’ linguistic knowledge. A teacher who lacks understanding of the ways that languages work can spread that ignorance to her students.
This article explores a case study of two educators, Mary Moran and Patricia Paugh, who introduced linguistics into their classroom in an attempt to increase academic literacy. Their daring venture paid off and their students’ literacy improved year after year.
Objectivity
One of the challenges in teaching linguistics is objectivity. It is easy for teachers to become emotionally invested in their students and to make subjective, judgmental comments that are not useful or fair. This is especially true for teachers of English language learners.
To avoid this, teachers need to have a good understanding of how other languages are set up and how they work. This is important because it can help them create objective language objectives for their students. Language objectives are goals that describe what academic language skills are needed for students to process content and meet grade-level standards. They should be clearly articulated and posted for students to self-assess throughout a lesson (Echevarria, Short, and Vogt, 2008).
Objectivity also means that teachers can avoid over-assessing student achievement. For example, if a student writes a creative short story, it is important to recognize that the quality of a written product does not depend solely on grammar and spelling rules.
Systematicness
One of the most basic aspects of linguistics is its systematic approach. Linguistics as a discipline is based on a series of logical and empirically-based ideas, which allow for the creation of clear models of how language works. These models then provide the basis for constructing teaching materials that are easy for teachers to understand and implement in their classrooms.
As such, a linguistic curriculum is essentially systematic, although it can vary in the degree to which it is so. For example, some phonics programs are highly systematic, while others are less so. Those that are more systematic tend to have a better track record in terms of student achievement.
Teachers need to be able to use their knowledge of language in order to support their students. As a result, a growing body of research has emerged that calls for teachers to be trained in the field of linguistics. In particular, there is a need to train teachers in the context of systemic functional linguistics, which is a meaning-based theory of language.
Relationships
The study of language, called linguistics, is a valuable tool for teachers. It provides the teacher with a better understanding of how English works and what to teach students. This knowledge is essential for developing effective communication and avoiding miscommunication.
Linguistics can help teachers understand how words and grammar work together to create a language. It also helps them to identify the differences between conversational speech and formal speech, and between regional dialects. Additionally, it explains the origins of common sayings and idioms. This is useful in preventing students from embarrassing themselves by using inappropriate or offensive language in polite society.
Studies have shown that teaching linguistics in the classroom can improve students’ literacy skills and academic performance. Moreover, it can help build caring relationships between students and their teachers. Linguistics can also help teachers and their students overcome language barriers. For example, it can show them how to use a bilingual dictionary and translate between two languages.
Relevance
In a world where diversity is the norm, it’s important for teachers to be able to understand their students. Linguistics helps teachers do that by providing an in-depth look at the origins of words and languages. Additionally, linguistics can help teachers make their lessons more relevant to students’ lives by focusing on cultural aspects of language.
The scholarship of teaching and learning in linguistics is a growing field. This section seeks to publish high quality peer reviewed articles that address the use of linguistic concepts and theories in teaching and learning more generally.
Applied linguistics has many different roles for teachers, including diagnosis of errors and making second language learning easier to understand. It also provides a deeper understanding of the way the English language works and what is involved in the process of second language acquisition. It also helps teachers be more ‘language aware’ and understand the challenges that students might face in the classroom.
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