Linguistics for Grades 9-12
In this 8-week online course, students will engage in the scientific study of various aspects of human language.
Serena W, PhD
Average rating:
5.0
Number of reviews:(18)
What's included
8 live meetings
10 in-class hoursHomework
1-2 hours per week. Homework includes exploratory exercises, watching videos, playing with applications, collecting data, and creating linguistic questions and hypotheses.Assessment
Progress is assessed using a participatory rubric during class meetings and via assignments between classes. There are also periodic quizzes and tests.Class Experience
US Grade 9 - 12
This course on the science of human language will focus on areas of linguistics that connect to biology, physics, computer science, and brain science. Students will watch videos in which linguistic concepts such as the physics of human language or the biology of sound production are explained carefully and in detail before live classes in which the instructor and students will engage in exploring interesting applications, doing experiments, observing or collecting information, or asking and answering questions together. Topics include a general introduction, the subfields of linguistics, acoustic phonetics, articulatory phonetics, language disorders, the evolution of language, how humans acquire language, bilingualism, corpus linguistics, and brain studies comparing spoken and signed languages.
Learning Goals
Students will learn
1) what the various fields of linguistics are
2) how spoken language is produced with sound waves
3) how the digestive and respiratory systems double as speech organs
4) how the sounds of human language are categorized
5) how languages systematically change over time
6) what common language disorders are and how studying brain damage helps us understand how language works
7) how children learn their language
8) what the bilingual brain looks like
9) how to use corpora, or large bodies of language data, to ask and answer linguistic questions
10) what we have learned about human language by comparing the brains of people speaking signed and spoken languages
Other Details
External Resources
Learners will not need to use any apps or websites beyond the standard Outschool tools.
Joined March, 2020
5.0
18reviews
Teacher expertise and credentials
Many courses in linguistics focus on applications of linguistics such as grammar, but few are oriented to the sciences. This course will show students that science concepts are very much needed to understand human language.Reviews
Live Group Class
$25
weekly or $198 for 8 classes1x per week, 8 weeks
75 min
Completed by 25 learners
Live video meetings
Ages: 13-18
1-12 learners per class
