ABSTRACT
Mandarin Chinese, Japanese, and Korean require much time and effort to achieve a professional working proficiency. Their shared linguistic features—Chinese characters, lexicon, grammar, cultural references, and more—make these East Asian languages challenging for second language learners. These shared features conversely create opportunities for collaboration among East Asian language instructors/programs within or across institutions. Moreover, globalization is diversifying East Asian language learner demographics at English-Medium instruction universities: There has been an increase in heritage learners and advantaged learners (i.e., international students from East Asia or learners who already know one East Asian language). Diverse demographics catalyze greater focus on individual needs to meet divergent language backgrounds and provide equity for students with varying proficiency levels.
Collaboration maximizes teaching efficacy and time through sharing experiences, issues, methods, and activities in teaching commonly shared features. Technology is key in meeting individual needs through collaboration in creating exercises, activities, and online resources. Blending/flipping the classroom augments the learning experience and time by utilizing online interactive activities. Student recruitment can be mutually promoted through joint cultural events. This chapter discusses shared linguistic features unique to East Asian languages, illustrates principles for collaborative teaching, and presents sample activities.
