Future Linguistics Educators - Project page

About this Project

What is this project?

There is a growing body of literature about the professional development of students in PhD programs (e.g. Cuthbert & Spark, 2008; Kornhaber, Cross, Betihavas, & Bridgman, 2016; Lee & Kamler, 2008; Murray, 2012), including discipline-specific resources such as MacCauley’s (2006) Surviving Linguistics. This literature focuses primarily on the development of graduate students as future scholars – emphasizing academic skills such as publishing in journals, presenting at academic conferences, and applying for research funding. While these are undoubtedly crucial skills for graduate students to learn, and it is important to demystify these scholarly practices for future academics, the roles of researcher, writer, and scholar are not the only roles that graduate students will take in on their future careers. Graduate students will often also take on the role of teacher, and for many this role will be central in their future careers. Indeed, pedagogical skills are important for academic positions and transferrable to careers beyond academic institutions. As emerging linguistics educators ourselves, we are interested in filling the gap in teaching-specific professional development for linguists and other social scientists.

This project will address the following research questions:

What strategies are used by graduate students in linguistics and other social science disciplines to develop as educators?
What strategies or resources should be developed to improve preparedness for future linguistics educators?

This is a mixed-methods project. Qualitatively, we investigate the experiences and practices of a small cohort of current graduate students and recent alumni in-depth through focus group conversation and thematic analysis. Results of an initial qualitative investigation are presented here. Quantitatively, we will collect information from across a wide range of institutions, degree program types, and disciplines, in order to give a broader comparative picture of graduate students’ professional development as social science educators. These quantitative data will be collected via an online survey instrument. Click on the link below to be kept up to date on this survey and other future steps in our project!

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Who are we?

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