Faculty Working in this Area: Xiaobin Jian, Mari Noda, Ooyoung Pyun, Charles Quinn, Galal Walker, Jianqi Wang, Etsuyo Yuasa
DEALL has an unmatched concentration of faculty members who work in language pedagogy, an interdisciplinary field of inquiry and practices that are informed by primary disciplinary areas that include linguistics, second language acquisition, psychology, biology, anthropology, sociology, and education.
The idea of performed culture is at the heart of the DEALL approach to language pedagogy. The approach is especially suitable for the “role-oriented” cultures of East Asia where communication events tend to follow culturally established patterns that are distinct from Western cultures. Basic scripts are learned by a process of enactment and adaptation to real-life performance situations. Language learners acquire their performance skills in ways similar to theatrical stage
performers, involving the study of scripts, rehearsal, and improvisation. The variety of roles students are able to play demonstrates the level of their knowledge of the target culture and society—on its terms. Language pedagogy, then, is concerned with enabling the process of learning to competently perform in another culture.
Treating language not just as a code, but a socialized cultural phenomenon, our inquiries relate to both the practiced culture of folklore, theatre and musical
traditions, and oral history on the one hand, and the readily observed everyday actions on the other. All of our pedagogy faculty members offer graduate courses in East Asian language pedagogy, ranging from pedagogical syntax (Pyun, Wang, Yuasa) to materials preparation (Noda, Pyun, Walker, Wang), from practicum courses in teaching EA languages (all) to seminar in East Asian language pedagogy (Quinn, Walker). SPEAC (Summer Programs East Asian Concentration) offers intensive teacher training in Chinese and Japanese (Noda, Walker). Pedagogy faculty members are also
actively engaged in language teaching. Ooyoung Pyun coordinates the Korean language program.
Charles Quinn primarily teaches the intermediate-level intensive courses and Mari Noda teaches the advanced-level Japanese. Xiaobin Jian, Galal Walker, and Jianqi Wang teach the advanced-level courses in Chinese, mostly in the Chinese Flagship Program, which includes the MA track in Advanced Chinese
Language and Culture (See Graduate Program).
OSU is home to National East Asian Language Resource Center a Title VI language resource center, and DEALL faculty lead in the publication of research and pedagogical materials through the Foreign Language Publications and other publishers.
Walker has also written extensively about performed culture, Noda is currently working on a new set of materials based on performed culture. Charles Quinn provides both diachronic and synchronic perspective to language through his work on the analysis of classical texts and modern language pragmatics. Etsuyo Yuasa has published about individualized instruction and pedagogical grammar. Pyun addresses individual learner variables in the learning process, including different needs of heritage and non-heritage learners of Korean
