Linguistics
Based on my research, I believe I was the first person to teach a standalone linguistics class below the high school level in the U.S., and possibly in the world! I think it's important for kids to learn about linguistics not only so that they have a better understanding of a lesser-known field, but also so they have a better understanding of their own language use (both in English and Spanish!), and because it's just inherently fascinating!
As any of my students could tell you after our first day of class, linguistics is the scientific study of language. My students study just about every aspect of linguistics in my classes, including phonetics (the study of speech sounds), phonology (the study of sound patterns), morphology (the study of word parts), syntax (the study of sentence structure), psycholinguistics (the study of language in the brain), sociolinguistics (the study of language in society), and more! |
For their final project, linguistics students had to use everything they learned over the year to create their own conlang! A conlang is a constructed language; a language that is man-made. The most famous conlangs were created for entertainment, like Dothraki (from Game of Thrones) or Klingon (from Star Trek), but Esperanto is the most widely spoken conlang in the world. Below is a final presentation of a conlang created by two 6th graders.