Lecturer:

Robert A. Eckhart

Time:

2019-05-2619:30:00

Venue:

Building B-206, South Campus

Lecturer Profile

Robert A. Eckhart taught at Ohio State University for more than 20 years. From 2013 to 2015, he served as Executive Director of the Ohio State University Integrated ESL Program, leading 50 teachers to provide teaching services to thousands of students.

He has taught writing and intermediate essay writing for US students and international students. He has taught legal writing for pre-law students, and provided English communication and writing for international graduate students, MBA students, law school masters, medical center postdoctoral fellows and researchers.

He has over 15 years of leadership and practical experience in providing English proficiency to China’s leading universities. At Ohio State University, he has been providing professional and culturally diverse services to Chinese students for many years and has received highly praise from Chinese students. From July to August, 2019, he will lead his team to Xidian University to carry out a three-week English summer camp for improving students' English communication skills.

Lecture Abstract

Language and Communcation are two different things. For decades, language learners have been working hard to memorize vocabulary and grammar while neglecting the cultural aspect of language learning which allows for successful communication in a foreign language. The Performed Culture Approach to language teaching and learning suggests that when learning a language, we are actually learning a culture...and there are many communication performances within a culture which are all based in the rules of that target culture. Using many examples from studying 5 languages and traveling to almost 40 countries, I will help the audience gain a new perspective on language learning and teaching.