Building Language-Content Connection with Translation

Research of the past decade began to focus on the merging of language and literary/cultural content in advanced-level foreign language teaching in collegiate contexts (Kramsch, 2006; Paesani & Allen, 2012).   However, the cold divide between language and culture is still the norm rather than an exception. Arguing against the assumption that KFL courses are a "service" program that is in step toward fulfilling the ultimate goal of Korean Studies (KS), Professor Cho proposes that the relationship between language, literature, and culture needs to be radically reconceptualized. Building linguistic proficiency is not a separate endeavor, and the current practice of incorporating incoherent cultural elements in KFL instruction is too narrow a goal.  Korean studies scholars in North American academia rarely deal with primary materials in literature, history, cinema, and/or gender studies, thus removing the students from the language in undergraduate education. At the same time,  KFL curricula are designed with little connection to content courses offered in the same program.  Through a curricular innovation of incorporating translation and translanguaging, Professor Cho suggests a concrete way of building a two-way bridge where an integrated curriculum simultaneously promotes linguistic and academic proficiencies.