Faculty-Language-Pedagogy

Yongjun Choi

Yongjun Choi

Adjunct Lecturer in Korean

Email: yjc2126@columbia.edu

Educational Background

MA: Tokyo University of Foreign Studies
BA: The Kyoto University of Education

Research Interests

YongJun Choi received his M.A. in Comparative Linguistics from Tokyo University of Foreign Studies. His research focused on the verb systems of Korean and Japanese. From 2001 to 2011, he taught Korean at language schools in Kyoto, Osaka, and Tokyo. He has also taught at CUNY, the Fashion Institute of Technology, the Beekman School and the Korea Society, at all levels, from beginning to advanced. He currently teaches Korean and Japanese at Montclair State University, the Korean Education Center, New York University and Columbia University.

Tao Peng

Tao Peng

Lecturer in Chinese

Office: 510 Kent Hall
Office Hours: MW 1:00-2:30
Phone: (212) 854-3604
Email: tp2728@columbia.edu

Educational Background

Ph.D.: Comparative Literature, University of California, Riverside.
Ed.M.: Curriculum and Methodology of Teaching Chinese as a Second Language, Beijing Language and Culture University
B.A.: Chinese Language and Literature, Hunan Normal University

Classes Taught

CHNS UN1101 First Year Chinese I
CHNS UN1102 First Year Chinese II
CHNS UN2201 Second Year Chinese N I
CHNS UN2202 Second Year Chinese N II
CHNS GU4017 Fourth Year Chinese Advanced I

Research Interests

Tao Peng earned his Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from the University of California, Riverside. His primary research focuses on modern Chinese fiction with a special interest in the interactions between language and literature. His dissertation, “The Emergence of the Modern Chinese Narrator: Studies of Lu Xun, Shi Zhecun, Sun Li, and Wang Zengqi,” is an interdisciplinary project of literary criticism, narratology, and linguistics. Tao Peng joined the Columbia faculty as a Lecturer of Chinese in the Fall of 2021. Before joining the Columbia faculty, Tao Peng taught Chinese language classes at Princeton University, Middlebury Chinese School, and several language programs in China. He also taught and coordinated various levels of Chinese courses at the Princeton in Beijing Summer Program.

Miharu Nittono

Miharu Nittono

Senior Lecturer in Japanese

Office: 520 Kent Hall
Office Hours: TR 4:00-5:00
Teaching Hours: MW 11:40-12:55, MTWR 1:10-2:15
Phone: (212)854-5500
Email: mn70@columbia.edu

Educational Background

EdD: Teachers College, Columbia University
MA: TESOL at Teachers College, Columbia University
MA: Waseda University

Classes Taught

JPNS UN2201 Second Year Japanese I
JPNS UN2202 Second Year Japanese II
JPNS GU4516 Fifth Year Japanese I
JPNS GU4517 Fifth Year Japanese II

Research Interests

Japanese Linguistics
Japanese “Hedging”

Miharu Nittono is a senior instructor of Japanese at Columbia University, where she has taught all levels of Japanese. She also has experience teaching intensive summer courses in Japanese, including “Japanese Language and Culture” at Sophia University in Tokyo as an invited professor. She has also served as the Administrative Director of the MA Program in Japanese Pedagogy at Columbia University.

Publications

Hiyaku: An Intermediate Japanese Course (Routledge, 2011; co-authors: Shigeru Eguchi, Fumiko Nazikian, Keiko Okamoto, Jisuk Park)
“Follow the Old Ways: A New Approach to Kanji Learning” (The Seventeenth Princeton Japanese Pedagogy Forum Proceedings, 2010)
“We’re doing traditional rakugo!: Striving towards acquiring the ‘five’ skills through performing rakugo” (The Sixteenth Princeton Japanese Pedagogy Forum Proceedings, 2009)
“Show & Short: A Journey through 10 Years of Student-Written Short Stories” (The 20th Annual Conference of the Central Association of Teachers of Japanese (CATJ20), 2008)
“Contrasting Group Size and Hedge Use” (The Fifteenth Princeton Japanese Pedagogy Forum Proceedings, 2008)
“Avoidance and Appeal: A Two-Fold Motivation for Japanese Hedging Use” (Sophia International Review, 2007)
“Hedging at Work: How Occupations Affect the Use of Hedging in Japanese Interactions during Non-Work Conversations” (The Fourteenth Princeton Japanese Pedagogy Forum Proceedings, 2007)
“Two-Fold Conversation Management Function of Japanese Hedging: Speaker-Centered and Listener-Centered” (Humanities Conference 2004 Proceedings, 2006)
“The Golden Mean: Japanese Speakers’ Use of ‘Downtoners’” (Hawaii International Conference on Arts and HumanitiesProceedings, 2005)
“Japanese Hedging in Friend-Friend Discourse” (Teachers College, Columbia University, 2003)