This presentation will introduce ideas for collaborative projects that can help promote intercultural competence in lower-level language classrooms. With three case studies of classroom projects created by beginners in Chinese, Japanese, and Korean, the presenter will demonstrate that students of East Asian languages can work together to enhance their comparative views of the target culture, and their local communities can be used as accessible resources for the target language and culture.
In case one, the presenters will demonstrate that cross-culture stories in English created by beginners in Chinese, Japanese, and Korean classes can promote collaboration and creativity in language and culture studies. In case study two, students research geolocative points of interest related to Chinese, Japanese, and Korean cultures and heritage in their local community and map their findings on Google Maps. This study presents that project-based geolocative learning experience enhances students' cultural competence in East Asian language courses. The last case study demonstrates how Chinese and Korean learners evaluate the cultural authenticity of Linguistic Landscape data by using their linguistic and cultural knowledge.
Overall, this presentation argues that it is imperative to specifically engage college learners of beginning proficiency to raise the impact of student-led research on L2 education. It also highlights the importance of cross-language collaboration. Furthermore, this presentation demonstrates the effective way of designing and implementing collaborative projects in language education.

Authors:
Bumyong Choi, Emory University, United States
Hakyoon Lee, Georgia State University, United States

About the Presenter(s)
Dr. Choi is an Associate Teaching Professor in the Department of Russian and East Asian Languages and Cultures at Emory University. His research interests are in Korean corpus linguistics and language pedagogy.

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