Touro University’s Graduate School of Education TESOL Teacher Candidate Timothy Bura’s Linguistic Case Study for EDDN 636

EDDN 636 Linguistic Structure of the English Language – Sociolinguistic Perspective

Course Description
This course provides an understanding of basic linguistic concepts and their applications for TESOL instruction. Students will be introduced to the essential concepts of language development and modern linguistic components that are relevant to first and second language pedagogy. Specific concepts include: phonetics, phonology, morphology, semantics, syntax, pragmatics, discourse
analysis, and the nature of regional and social variations in English and the relationship between dialects and ethnic identity. Students will explore the origins, diversity, and functions of human languages, in addition to the relationship between language and society. Students will also study key concepts of sociolinguistics in order to gain a solid understanding of the social and cultural dimensions of language. Includes 10 hours of fieldwork. 3 credits

Michele Goldin is an Assistant Professor of Bilingual Education and TESOL at Touro University Graduate School of Education. She received her Ph.D. in Bilingualism and Second Language Acquisition from Rutgers University. Her research broadly focuses on child bilingualism. As a heritage speaker of Spanish herself, she strives to increase our understanding of bilingual development with direct implications for successful academic outcomes, language policy and pedagogy, as well as bilingual and dual-language education.

Touro University’s Graduate School of Education TESOL Teacher Candidate Timothy Bura received his Bachelor’s degree in Sociology/Anthropology from Long Island University Brooklyn. After completing his undergraduate studies, he joined the NYC Teaching Fellows and earned his Master’s degree in Teaching Urban Adolescents with Disabilities from Long Island University Brooklyn. “Currently, I am working on my second Master’s in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages at Touro University. I taught for four years at Midwood High School at Brooklyn College and transferred to Innovation Diploma Plus High School this year.”

I did some research into how to make and teach the phoneme /th/ and found a Chicago based speech therapist named Karen George’s website. She advises that you first teach the mouth movements and tongue placement for that sound. She writes that you place your tongue in between your teeth and breathe out. This will make an “unvoiced /th/ sound”. When David and I met to work on this, I had him do this exercise (George, 2012). Since we are required to wear masks, I separated myself from him to show him what I meant by placing one’s tongue in between their teeth.

TESOL Teacher Candidate Timothy Bura, Touro University – Graduate School of Education