Assessment summary 

• Reading presentations and class discussions

Each week, starting from week 2, one or two students will be tasked with reading a specialised journal article related to the main topic of the lecture. After a general introduction into the weekly topic by the lecturer, the relevant student(s) will first deliver a succinct 5–10-minute exposition on the structure and content of the paper with a focus on the main research question, methods and findings. All students will then engage in a discussion of how the specialised reading relates to the general topic at hand as well as to the general reading from Ingrid Piller's book. In the process, students shall strive to work as a team to clarify any points of difficulty and to address different possible interpretations of what exactly the implications of the readings are both from a theoretical and a practical perspective. In this regard, students are highly encouraged to share personal anecdotes or otherwise relate the relevant ideas to their own range of experiences and insights.

• Essay draft

The student is expected to go through all the recommended readings to get a sense of the breadth and scope of theories and applications within the chosen topic. The student is also expected to narrow down their research enquiry and focus on a subset of readings that shall serve as the basic core for the main argument of their essay. To this end, the draft shall present a minimal literature review, followed by a main section where the student has a first attempt at answering the essay research question(s). In doing so, the student is expected to synthesise the various theories and frameworks they are drawing inspiration from specifying how these relate to one another and how they support the main argument. The draft's title shall reflect the theoretical and argumentative line adopted by the student, e.g., if the essay question is "Does speaking multiple languages makes us smarter?", appropriate essay titles could be something along the lines of "Multilingualism correlates with high cognitive performance: An interdisciplinary survey of the available data." or "Speaking a second language makes you smarter but speaking a third one does not."

• Oral presentation

Once the students have received feedback on their essay draft, they shall craft a PowerPoint or Keynote presentation where they present a revised and expanded version of their chosen research question(s). The structure of this presentation is somewhat flexible, but shall minimally include the following parts:

1. an introduction to the topic including a minimal literature review

2. an explicit discussion of the main research question(s) and its relevance

3. a well-reasoned argument supported by the extant literature

4. preliminary conclusions

• Discussion board

Each student shall succinctly write up a case study based on their own observations of linguistic diversity and social justice phenomena in the real world. While students are encouraged to include anecdotical detail, e.g., 'I was on the bus the other day and I saw...', the situation presented needs to be explicitly linked to theories and principles covered in class and in the available literature. A preliminary minimal analysis should be provided attempting to explain why the relevant situation obtained.

• Final essay

Having received feedback on the oral presentation in the form of student and lecturer input in class, students will craft a definitive paper on the chosen topic. This shall be significantly longer than the draft, include at least 15 references from peer-reviewed journals and/or academic books, and an explicit discussion of shortcomings of the study and further directions for research. As a general rule, the essay shall be broken down into various parts following a methodological and/or thematic order. The structure of the paper shall be flagged in the introduction after a brief overview of the topic at hand. 

A recommended structure is as follows:

Section 1. Introduction: What is your research question? What is the overall topic of study? Why is it relevant and to whom, i.e., what academic (sub)fields of research does the topic belong into and what kind of academic and non-academic audiences will be interested in reading your paper? What are some general methodological and content references that allow you to frame the topic and your specific contribution to the state of knowledge? What is the structure of the paper?

Section 2. Literature review: This needs to be more extensive than the introduction. Here you can go from more general to more specific. For example, you may begin laying the ground by introducing some general work on the relationship between language and society and then move onto linguistic diversity and social justice and then onto your specific topic. Try to be as comprehensive, relevant and explicit as possible, i.e., spell out how each reference you cite relates to the topic. Make sure to include no extraneous references to unrelated topics or disciplines.

Section 3. Interpretive/Main section: Present your case! Problematise and answer the key research question(s) by reference to the general literature. Think of aspects of your topic not covered in the provided literature. However, do some additional research to establish whether there is actually some further potentially relevant research that was not included in the original recommendations!

[Sections 2 and 3 can be merged into a single section]

[Section 3 can be broken down into multiple sections or subsections depending on methods and content]

Section 4. Summary, conclusions and discussion. Here you summarise your main findings, discuss their relevance and address the shortcomings of your research as well as potential avenues for future research.