Abstract

Although teaching and research have a symbiotic relationship in many institutions’ mission statements, as academic staff, we can sometimes view them as being direct competitors for our time, particularly perhaps with teaching at undergraduate level. Nevertheless, a considerable amount of our teaching at this level is at least research-led, where students learn about research findings in the field and also about the research interests of lecturing staff. It is arguably more difficult to follow a research-based approach, where students learn as researchers from a curriculum driven by inquiry-based activities. Hattie & Marsh (1996: 534) recommend that the teaching/research nexus should be driven by (1) the construction of knowledge by students rather than the imparting of knowledge by instructors, (2) the construction of assignments that reward deep learning, and (3) approaches which emphasize the uncertainty of the task. In this paper, I outline and reflect on several ways in which I have tried to engage undergraduate students in research activity, with the aim of having them produce original research projects. The main focus is an introductory sociolinguistics course in which I ask students to carry out a study of lexical variation in New Zealand by building upon Bauer and Bauer’s (2003) ‘Playground Talk’ project. I discuss the benefits and outline several challenges of engaging first year undergraduate students in sociolinguistic research, and conclude that doing so is advantageous to the students, who can engage more effectively in the subject matter, and that it is also helpful for academics as we try to balance teaching and research commitments.

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