AP Linguistics Conference Support

Linguistics, the scientific study of human language, is widely taught at the university level, but the findings and concepts of the discipline have not yet made their way into American K-12 education in any systematic way. In response to this challenge, the Linguistic Society of America (LSA) has launched an ambitious effort to develop an Advanced Placement (AP) course in Linguistics for the nation's high schools. Creating AP Linguistics will involve a collaborative effort between high school teachers and linguistics faculty from across the U.S. to create and deliver courses. AP Linguistics will need to recruit talented, enthusiastic high school faculty who are prepared to teach the AP Linguistics curriculum. Various experiments with introductory linguistics courses are currently underway in U.S. high schools, by English teachers, foreign language teachers, mathematics teachers, and social studies teachers. As part of its teacher recruitment effort, AP Linguistics proposes to send past and current experimenters to national and regional conferences in their subject matters to report on their efforts in relation to AP Linguistics, and to motivate others to join in. This award will provide travel support to enable U.S. high school teachers to attend national and regional conferences in connection with the LSA's AP Linguistics initiative and to speak to their fellow teachers about their efforts to develop introductory linguistics courses at the high school level. Rather than a "top-down" approach, wherein college faculty attempt to recruit from above, this award will let our national teachers speak for themselves from their own experiences.