Jinai Sun

Dr. Sun has more than 10 years of experience in Chinese language education and teacher development in the United States. Since 2011, she has held a visiting teaching position in Chinese at North Central College. In 2014 she was appointed as Assistant Professor of Chinese. As administrator and teacher in the College's Chinese program, she expanded the program from a minor to a major area of study. Sun also has served as program director for the highly competitive STARTALK Chinese Immersion program granted by the United States Department of Defense.

Her areas of research interest focus on implementation of Chinese as a foreign language and the enhancement of Chinese language capacity in American schools. Her studies also target curriculum and instruction as well as effective delivery and communication in higher education classrooms.

Selected Scholarship

An Action Research of the Chinese Context-Based Intercultural Teaching: A Case Study of an Intercultural Exchange Project between American and Chinese College Students, Intercultural Communication Studies (2013)

An Intercultural Communication Project Study, Academic Exchange Quarterly  (2013)

Friendly Habitat, Endangered Species: Mandarin and Politics in an American School District, Educational Administration Quarterly, EAQ-11-0086 (2012)

Michael Apted's The Up! Series as a Teaching Prompt for Understanding, Collaboration, and New Learning in a Sociology Course Setting, Teaching Sociology, 37: pp.402–412 (2009)

Grants and Citizenship

Successfully led a team of North Central College faculty and staff to secure a $90,000.00 federal grant provided by the Department of Defense (2014)

Successfully led a team of North Central College faculty and staff to plan, organize and secure a $50,700.00 federal grant provided by the Department of Defense (2013)

Awarded summer faculty research grant at North Central and supervised student research on “Promoting Chinese learning motivation through the development of social and affective attachment” (2013)

Co-hosted “Chinese Culture Land” summer camp for over 130 students with Xilin Asian Community Center at North Central College. This grant was funded by Overseas Chinese Affairs Office of the State Council (2013)

Awarded “Willower Award for Dissertation Excellence” from the Department of Education at the Pennsylvania State University (2012)

Courses Taught

Elementary Chinese

Intemediate Chinese

Exploring China Through Film

Exploring Chinese Through Popular Culture

Chinese for Professional Settings

Communication and Composition