Teaching

UGent BA/MA supervision

I am happy to be contacted regarding the supervision of BA/MA theses within the UGent Department of Languages and Cultures and the Department of Linguistics, especially for topics on theoretical syntax and/or languages of West/Central Africa. If you would like more information, please send me an email.

African Historical Linguistics

In semester 2 of 2025/2026, I am co-teaching African Historical Linguistics with Koen Bostoen, Heidi Goes, Hilde Gunnink, and Nina van der Vlugt. The course is a 10-week course covering the fundamentals of historical-comparative linguistics with application to African languages. I am teaching the following 2 weeks:

Diachronic morphology and syntax
Diachronic semantics

Linguistics 2B: The Syntax of English

In block 2 semester 2 of 2023/24, I co-taught Linguistics 2B: The Syntax of English with Anikó Lipták. The course covers the following topics, with illustration from English dialects:

word classes
identifying constituents and their function
analysing the internal structure of phrases and sentences
identifying verb types
structural analysis of English grammar

Syntax 1

I taught seminars for Syntax 1 from the BA Linguistics programme. The course is a 16-week introduction into syntax and syntactic analysis within the generative framework and was co-taught with Lisa Cheng.

A formal approach to language
Syntactic categories
Categories and structures
Constituent structure
Clause-sized objects
Clausal projections
X-bar theory
Clause structured continued
Argument structure
Head movement and wh-movement

The Studiegids page is here.

Linguistics 1: Analyzing English Sounds and Words

I co-taught block 2 of Linguistics 1 with Anikó Lipták. Block 2 provides an introduction to English morphology and morphological analysis for first-year students of the BA English Language and Culture Programme (following block 1 on basic phonetics). The course covers key topics in morphology, such as:

the internal structure of complex words
inflection
derivation
compounding
productivity and historical sources of English word formation

Further course information is available on Studiegids.

Language Acquisition 5: Theories and Research Methods in Applied Linguistics

I designed and taught block 2 of LA5 in 2023/24, covering interviewing as a research method. This block forms part of a course on different research methods in applied linguistics for final-year undergraduates in the BA English Language and Culture programme. The block is structured as follows:

What is interviewing?
Planning the interview
The practicalities of interviewing
Practical assignment

Further course information is available on Studiegids.

Language Acquisition 3: Functional Grammar

I taught seminars for block 1 of LA3 in 2023/24, covering English grammar from pedagogical and functional perspectives. The following topics are covered:

Perspectives on studying grammar
Tense and aspect
Modality
Adverbials
Determiners and nouns
Pronouns and adjectivals
Building sentences

Further course information is available on Studiegids.

Linguistics 3: The Syntax of English: Present and Past (BA)

In 2020/21 I taught seminars for a 12-week course on theoretical syntax and the history of English, in hybrid (online + physical) format due to COVID-19. The students were second-year students in the BA English Language and Culture programme. Topics covered include:

Constituency tests
X’-theory
Theta-theory and Case
V2 and OV/VO in Germanic
The loss of verb movement in English
Syntactic variation across modern English varieties

Further course information is available on Studiegids.

Linguistics in Kenya Experience (LIKE) field school (BA/MA)

I co-designed, co-organised, and co-taught at the LIKE field school at Tharaka University College in Jan 2020 as part of a collaboration between the BaSIS project and Tharaka University College/Chuka University, Kenya. I gave the lectures below in week 1 and was a mentor/supervisor for the students in the second and third weeks, during which students conducted their own research projects on a Kenyan language with local consultants.

Setting up a linguistics research project [with Jenneke van der Wal]
Introduction to information structure [with Jenneke van der Wal]
Introduction to Ékegusií
Field methods: How to use tech
Dative database
Field methods: How to work with a consultant [with Patrick Kanampiu]

You can find the slides on the BaSIS LIKE page and see news reports about the field school here (Leiden University) and here (Tharaka University College). The summer school was also repeated in Malawi in 2022: see the BaSIS LIME page.

Topics in Linguistics A: Information Structure (MA)

I co-designed and co-taught a 6-week MA course on information structure with Jenneke van der Wal in Sept-Oct 2019, with students from masters programmes in Linguistics.

Syllabus (instructors for each class indicated by initials):

What is information structure? [EK, JW]
Where is the addresee’s attention? [EK]
What is in focus? [JW]
Stay focused [EK]
On topic and contrast [EK, JW]
Connections [JW, EK]

The course re-ran Sept-Oct 2022 (see Studiegids), for which I gave class 2 as a guest lecture.

Guest lectures

Guest lecture in Leiden University Centre for Linguistics PhD Research Data Management course on research data management for linguistic fieldwork (2023)
Guest lecture in Leiden University MA Topics in Linguistics A: Information Structure course on the addressee’s attention/referent tracking in discourse (2022)
Guest lecture in Leiden University BA Descriptive Linguistics programme on Luganda phonology problem set and introduction to tone analysis (2019)

Supervision

In 2023/24 I supervised/examined 5 BA/MA dissertations in the English Language and Culture and Linguistics programmes (within the Descriptive Linguistics and Language and Cognition tracks).

Qualifications

BKO certificaat [University Teaching Qualification], Leiden University – University teaching qualification awarded September 2024 on basis of didactics training, teaching experience, supervision, class observation, and written portfolio
12-hour didactics training course Supervising thesis students – completed 2024, Leiden University
14-hour didactics training course Testing and assessment, Leiden University – completed 2024, Leiden University
BKO deelcertificaat [Partial BKO certificate], Leiden University – University teaching qualification awarded December 2021 on basis of didactics training, teaching experience, class observation, and written portfolio
28-hour didactics training course Active Learning and Didactic Skills – completed 2019, delivered by dr. Cornelia de Haan, Bureau Coaching Hoger Onderwijs [Coaching Agency for Tertiary Education] at LUCL