Project Director: Wenhao Diao (University of Arizona [UA]).
In collaboration with: the Council for International Educational Exchange (Shanghai), Alliance for Global Education (Shanghai), the CV Starr Middlebury School in China (Hangzhou), the Confucius Institute at the UA (CIUA), East Asian Studies (UA), and Pima Community College.
This project meets the needs arising from initiatives that have increased the numbers of American Study Abroad students travelling to China and the dearth of materials outside homestay settings that offer opportunities for students and instructors to learn from students interacting with their peers. Drawing from Dr. Diao’s research on study abroad encounters between American and Chinese students, this project will produce an archive of recorded and transcribed interactions between American college students and their Chinese peers. The project strives to achieve three pedagogical goals: (1) to increase American college students’ knowledge of Chinese youth culture and linguistic practices and in so doing to foster their awareness of the connections between language and society; (2) to serve as a rich resource for language instructors to understand students’ language use in everyday encounters beyond the classroom setting which they can incorporate into their curriculum and into pre- and post-study abroad programming; and (3) to provide American college students opportunities to learn about the Chinese youth culture and linguistic practices through authentic linguistic situations.
Click here for the Dormtalk website produced by this project.