Teaching Resources and Innovation Library for Linguistics (TRILL)

Introducing TRILL

The Teaching Resources and Innovations Library for Linguistics (TRILL) is the first peer-reviewed venue for the sharing of high quality, evidence-based linguistics teaching resources.[1]  TRILL resources are, at their core, specific class activities and assignments used by the authors, but they are presented and annotated in such a way as to be useful in a broader variety of pedagogical contexts and to engage with core principles of the pedagogical and linguistic literature.[2] Moreover, pedagogical resources are expected to engage substantively with themes in the spirit of increasing equity, diversity, and inclusion in service of greater justice in teaching linguistics, and to use linguistic and other forms of data ethically.

A distinguishing characteristic of TRILL is the peer review process, which ensures that submissions achieve a baseline of quality and generalizability and further raises the profile of scholarly teaching and the scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL) in our discipline. While these general criteria also characterize the Teaching Linguistics section of Language, articles there are generally understood to represent pedagogical innovations of considerable scope, such as an entire course design or ongoing empirical assessment. In contrast, TRILL aims to facilitate the sharing of practical, contextualized, citable pedagogical resources  that linguistics teachers can use in their classrooms. (Read full introduction by the editorial team in TRILL 2025, Vol. 1, Issue 1)


 

TRILL Editors

Lynsey Wolter, University of Wisconsin, Eau Claire
Kazuko Hiramatsu, University of Michigan-Flint
Michal Temkin Martinez, Boise State University

Submission Guidelines

TRILL accepts rolling submissions (via Oxford Abstracts), which are reviewed twice a year. The deadline for the next review period is March 15, 2026.  Your submission will consist of two parts: (1) teaching materials you are sharing (such as slides, assignment guidelines, etc.) and (2) a narrative essay that will accompany the teaching materials.  Note that if you don't have an Oxford Abstracts username and password, you will need to create one in order to start the submission process. 

Teaching Materials

Include the teaching materials explicitly mentioned in your narrative essay. If you are sharing more than one file, you will need to submit a ZIP archive. 
 

Creative Commons Licensing

In the footer for each of the teaching materials, add a Creative Commons license so that readers will know how they may or may not use your pedagogical materials. Please use the following template:
 

Narrative Essay 

Write a short essay, using the outline below to guide your writing. Use the 1st/3rd person.
 

1. ABSTRACT

   1. In 100-150 words, introduce your resource.

2. CONTEXT: Describe the course and instructors

   1. Course and student context: This might include information about when and where the course was taught, format (e.g. in-person, online, hybrid, learning management system), class size, class purpose (e.g. General Education, linguistics for non-linguists), level of the students (e.g. lower-level undergraduates, graduate students in an English MA program). When describing the institutional context, think beyond the typical ways of characterizing institutions (e.g. Carnegie classification, HBCU, PWI). For example, include factors that are important to understanding the context for this assignment. This might include course and/or student needs for financial and technological resources.

   2. Instructor context: This might include information about the number of instructors, instructor roles (e.g. sole instructor, instructor of record, teaching or grading assistants), the instructors’ teaching experiences (both generally and specific to this course), and how the instructors’ positionalities, professional responsibilities,and affiliation with the department or institution influence the activity. 

3. ACTIVITY/ASSIGNMENT: Describe the activity or assignment

   1. What are the learning outcomes?

   2. What are students asked to do? What prior knowledge do students have (if any) and/or what is the context for the activity within the course?

   3. What is assessed? 

   4. What criteria are used to assess learning? How does the activity (and its assessment) align with course learning outcomes?

4. UNIQUE FEATURES: Explain why you are choosing to share this activity with TRILL

   1. What is creative or innovative about it? How does this activity compare to others you have used or that are widely available?

   2. How does this activity build on, counter, or improve existing pedagogical methodologies or research? 

5. JUSTICE, EQUITY, DIVERSITY AND INCLUSION: How does the assignment/activity engage with justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion? How does it facilitate broader JEDI-related goals of your academic program, institution, community, and/or discipline (such as these)? What extra scaffolding should instructors consider to maximize JEDI when using this assignment/activity? Address as many of these as you can. 

6. How is accessibility to students incorporated in this assignment/activity? Are there any limitations related to accessibility?

7. How does the assignment/activity promote accurate, equitable, and respectful representation and treatment of different communities of language users? How does it counteract harmful ideologies?

8. How does the assignment/activity promote inclusion of language users and/or issues which are inaccurately or underrepresented in linguistic studies or linguistics classrooms?

9. How do the language examples or datasets used engage issues of data sovereignty (for example, do they provide the information that’s needed)?

10. How do the language examples or datasets used show respect for the people whose language is under study?

6. REFLECTION AND COMMENTARY

   1. What worked well? 

   2. What are the limitations?

   3. What should instructors consider when using this assignment/activity? 

   4. What would you try differently next time?

7. REFERENCES

   1. Acknowledge borrowed teaching materials and ideas, using your best judgment to determine reference format.

8. Include references for all published sources in APA format.
   
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[1] TRILL was inspired by the American Sociological Association's Teaching Resources and Innovations Library for Sociology. The shared acroynm with the Trans Research in Linguistics Lab at the University of California, Santa Barbara's research lab (directed by Lal Zimman) is a coincidence. 
[2] Each TRILL author uses a Creative Commons license to indicate how their pedagogical resources may be used and/or adapted.