Jennimaria Palomaki
Teaching Portfolio
Teaching Philosophy
My passion for linguistics is rooted in my cultural and linguistic heritage. I was born in
Ostrobothnia, a region of Finland with a distinct dialect of Finnish and a strong cultural identity. My first
immersion in American culture came when I was still a toddler, so I had the benefit and excitement of
growing up bilingual. My childhood was spent on both sides of the Atlantic and as a result I became
fascinated with the differences in the languages my life was entrenched in and the different sides of
myself that emerged with them. Linguistics provided me with the opportunity to understand myself and
the world around me in ways that were both personal and universal.
Owing to this experience, I believe that Linguistics is an essential component of a well-rounded
education that allows students to understand the significance of a part of their lives that is so integral
many of them may take it for granted. A successful Linguistics classroom is one in which students with
different backgrounds, learning styles, and academic goals can enrich their understanding of themselves
and the fascinating and linguistically diverse world around them. Whether through an introductory
course taken as an elective or an upper level syntax course taken by a degree-seeking Linguistics
student, the study of language is uniquely poised to capture the attention and imagination of students
because language is central to the human experience.
I believe that the best classrooms allow students to be actively engaged in how learning
happens. So rather than telling students about the principles that govern language I ask them to
discover them with me. Before showing introductory Linguistics students the phonetic alphabet I ask
them to think about what their throat, tongue, lips, and jaw are doing when they are talking. Before I
introduce students in my Generative Syntax course to the notion of phrase structure I ask them to think
about the relationships between parts of a sentence and how phrases modify individual words. This
approach allows me to build on and challenge the students’ own ideas and knowledge about how
language works.
The fundamental values that underlie my approach to teaching are respect for students and
respect for the integrity of the learning experience. I exhibit respect for students by holding them up to
high academic standards that are clearly laid out at the beginning of the semester. I ask students to
explore language through classroom discussion and through challenging written assignments. Students
in my classes are accountable not only to me but to each other: written assignments are shared in peergroups where they can be argued, reviewed, and improved before they are turned in to me. These peergroups also allow students to engage with the perspectives of their classmates. I exhibit respect for the
learning experience by giving formative feedback in both classroom discussions and on written
assignments that is mindful of each student’s perspective and level of understanding.
Students in my classroom are never blank slates waiting to be written upon; they are important
members of a classroom community who both enrich and contribute to that community with their own
unique ideas. My role in that community is to set goals and to guide students on the path to obtaining
those goals. Some goals are specific to the class: in Introductory Linguistics my goals is to introduce
students to the different levels of linguistic analysis while in Generative Syntax I’m more concerned with
providing students with a powerful set of analytical skills with which to approach the syntactic analysis
of different languages. However, the primary goal in all of my classes is to provoke students to think
about the world around them with an appreciation for it’s linguistic diversity, the complexity of all
languages, and the amazing ability of their own minds to both create and understand language.