The Language and Culture Center at Duke Kunshan University hosted its first academic conference, “Think Globally, Act Locally: How We Engage Language and Culture,” on Feb. 21.
The event brought together about 120 scholars, educators and language teaching professionals from institutions including NYU Shanghai, Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University, Wenzhou-Kean University, Ohio State University, Beijing Foreign Studies University, Southeast University, City University of Hong Kong and the University of Nottingham Ningbo China.
Held in Duke Kunshan’s academic building, the conference featured lectures and discussions on new approaches to language education and intercultural communication.
Scott MacEachern, vice chancellor for academic affairs at Duke Kunshan, gave the opening remarks, sharing his experience of learning 18 languages while conducting archaeological research in northern Cameroon, West Africa. He emphasized the role of language learning in shaping identity and fostering cultural understanding.
The keynote address, “Integrated Performance Assessment for Engaging Language and Culture,” was delivered by Francis Troyan, professor of multilingual education at Ohio State. He discussed the limitations of traditional language proficiency tests and introduced integrated performance assessments in university courses, a method that evaluates students’ ability to understand and apply language and culture in real-world contexts.
Don Snow, professor and senior director of the Language and Culture Center, said language education is about more than just vocabulary and grammar. More importantly, he said, it helps students develop essential life skills, including adapting to new environments, overcoming cultural and linguistic barriers, and collaborating across diverse backgrounds.
Following the keynote, attendees joined 11 parallel sessions and an interactive poster session covering topics such as the impact of artificial intelligence on writing and learning, teaching Chinese as a second language, intercultural communication strategies and innovations in language assessment. These discussions offered valuable insights into the future of language education.
The conference was hosted by DKU’s Language and Culture Center and sponsored by the DKU Humanities Research Center.