2.3 Course Aims
2.3.1 Linguistic and academic skills
The introduction course had the aim to provide you with the necessary terminology. Like in learning a language, you need to build up your academic vocabulary before you can productively participate in any discussion. This course now is the next step. We are going to transition from reading text book chapters to actual research literature. We are going to expand the concepts and the theory behind them. And finally we are going to put it to a test by writing a linguistic study.
In the end, you will…
- Have a deeper understanding of basic linguistic concepts
- Have first experience with reading and carrying out empirical research
- Understand basic concepts of cognitive science and usage-based linguistics
- Understand and compile basic statistics
2.3.2 Skills that go beyond linguistics
Many of the skills you acquire during this class are not only useful in linguistics. Especially knowledge of empirical methodology and statistics is now more important than ever. Everyone encounters results of empirical research (good and bad) on a daily basis on the news and social media, but too few people can actually interpret the information properly. Many jobs also require at least basic knowledge in statistics.
Furthermore, there are other skills that you may benefit from indirectly, such as…
- Understanding human perception of quantities
- Understanding memory
- Understanding non-linguistic research results better
- Improve writing, reading and computer skills
2.3.3 Soft skills for Teachers
- Understand the logic behind modern teaching material
- Spot bad or obsolete material
- Understand how stubborn mistakes are learned
- Become a more aware of statistics, correlations and spurious correlations in your class room
