What am I doing in Beijing?

I have already received some questions from my friend, Herbert Nagamatsu. I feel foolish that I didn't answer some of these sooner.

Q: How long will you be there?

A: Four months. We leave the States on the 17 of August and fly back on the 19th of December.

Q: Will you be working there, teaching English, or doing anything else?

A: Lacey and I will both be attending Capital Normal University. I am going with Brigham Young University - Idaho. This is actually a pilot trip for them, so I'm excited to be in the first group to go. While at CNU, we will be taking intensive language classes. In addition to the language curriculum, we will have instruction in Chinese culture and literature. From what I know, we will be in language class four hours, five days a week.

In addition to schooling, I am going to be executing two projects simultaneously. I will be collecting data for a research project focusing on teacher-student communication at the university, research that I hope to present in 2012 at the Western Conference of the Association for Asian Studies (WCAAS) which will be hosted by BYU-Idaho. The second project is part of a scholarship I received from the Gilman International Scholarship program. I will be filming small documentary vignettes about the student life in Beijing, and other practical scripts like getting a taxi, ordering food, etc.

Thanks for the questions Herbert!