Learner Reviews & Feedback for Miracles of Human Language: An Introduction to Linguistics by Universiteit Leiden
About the Course
Top reviews
Extremely informational, well presented, with questions that stimulate reflection. The optional reading material is food for thought. I hope to see more courses from the same professor and University.
Excellent! Really enjoyed and learnt a lot. I did not expect such a great content and professionalism in a free course. I am definitely purchasing for the title.\n\nThanks to all the team! Great job!
426 - 450 of 557 Reviews for Miracles of Human Language: An Introduction to Linguistics
By Evgeniya V
•Great Course!
By Charles M
•really worthy
By Sayar G R
•It was great.
By ABDUR R
•Nice course
By Abdadiam A
•Great !!!!!
By Jee Y K
•fascinating
By Juliana
•Thank you!
By John W
•Loved it!
By daniel d
•Excellent
By petya
•brilliant
By adriano m
•very good
By Géraldine G
•Excellent
By Daniel V
•muy bueno
By Pham V C
•Good !
By Theodoro C F
•Great!
By Ken
•非常好的课程
By Le T T H
•good
By Quan T P
•good
By Yao M
•Fun!
By Tran T H N ( H
•no
By Lorena R d l M
•.
By Christopher B
•Overall, I really enjoyed this class. It gave me an excellent overview of linguistics as the scientific study of language. The presentation style was really engaging as Maarten interacts with Martin, Inge and guests. The downloadable lecture transcripts were fantastic. That said, I have a few suggestions:
1) Include more free online resources. Most the background reading material were Amazon books, which are expensive if you come from a country with a weak currency. On the practical note, most telelearners like myself don't have time to read an entire book. It would have been far better to include journeys.
2) If students want to do the honours course, allow them to study on a different academic schedule. I found it impossible to complete research assignments and tests at the same.
3) A few assessment questions were poorly phrased and this leads to confusion on the single and multiple select quizzes.
4) Commenting and replying to questions wasn't that interactive. Hoping that somebody would randomly reply or comment to your answer was frustrating. If we were paired up with online study partners, we could discuss topics together.
5)Lastly, fix for typos on course material and tests.
MOOC's are definitely the future of education in an increasing globalized and connected world. Thank you for a great module.
By Ralitsa N
•The course is interesting and offers a theoretical basis together with real language examples, that is a good combination when trying to put some of the theory in practice. The interviews with researchers also offer different perspective into interesting topics. What I consider not quite well accomplished are the tests: some offer incorrect answers to questions that already have been pointed out, as mentioned by the staff, in previous editions. Not having them corrected rests credibility to the entire course material. The final test includes some questions that although having relationship with a particular module, are hardly something relevant to take away from this course (e.g. in what sentence did a language informant repeat a nasal sound as a result of a speech error). If we consider tests as a learning tool, as they should be, the way they are designed should be more careful and meaningful to the learner. Despite the parts that to me need improvement, I want to thank to everybody involved in preparing and offering this MOOC, as I know from personal experience how challenging this can be.
By Muhip T
•More comprehensive than I thought. Starts with a good introduction and goes through different areas of linguistics: phonology, semantics, syntax, pragmatics, biological aspects etc. Although some videos have some mistakes in them, course material is high quality. Lectures and interviews are professional and language informants have been chosen well (thanks and congratulations to each informant!)
I gave 4 stars because I felt that the quizzes and the final exam were a bit too detailed for an online course. It would be worse if they were too easy, but I think this difficulty is still a bit over the top (although I passed almost all of them at first attempt)
I definitely like when courses force attendants to go on the forum, write their ideas and respond to others. This mandatory interaction definitely works and the forum is full of brilliant comments and good discussions.
To sum up: difficult exams but the course has been prepared very professionally and whoever wants to have a basic understanding of the study of linguistics would gain a lot from this.
By Andrew D
•Great course and a fantastic introduction to linguistics. The Professor's passion for the subject is infectious, and he and the assistants present information very clearly. The interviews also allow the participant an insight into current developments in the field.
The discussion forum was a particularly good touch. It was interesting to see a lot of different perspectives and interpretations. This was the most rewarding in the pragmatics section, with the differing interpretations about whether a student in the scenario presented had violated any of Grice's maxims.
Areas for improvement:
- Some of the quiz questions felt very ambiguous; like there could be more than one correct answer. This led to some annoying dropped marks.
- The honours assignment instructions were quite unclear (this came up in the forums also).
- Missing content like subtitles from the language informant videos.
Overall, would thoroughly recommend this course, both for beginners and for those with some or even much linguistic knowledge.
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