A Language and Cultural Practicum Course in Nanjing: Maximizing the Students’ Use of Chinese

Abstract

This paper examines an experience-based language course operating in the field during an intensive language training program in Nanjing, China, during the summer of 1999. The objectives are to report on the design success of our “language and cultural practicum” course, and thereby address best practices and challenges of experience-based language learning. In addition to four hours of classroom instruction each morning, students participated in an afternoon practicum course in which they were required to go off campus and interact with the Chinese community at large and gather specific information for specific assignments. Assets of the practicum course were its flexibility of design, allowing for student self-design of exercises, efficiency in tracking the students’ whereabouts and structuring of their time, and production of an overall synergy of language learning by consciously exercising spoken skills in the field, reinforced with written practice in a daily journal write-up, capped off by a daily presentation during the evening debriefing class.