Abstract

technology share a universal basis of communication and, as long as we limit our discussion to technical content, we could come to an understanding. However, a number of college graduates who have worked abroad or worked with people with different cultural backgrounds have encountered difficulties in getting their work done. They might have gotten the technical meaning across, but the process of doing business may not be the same. Therefore, one needs to have a broad understanding of the target culture. This paper discusses the attempt to respond to this issue. Many engineering schools already have a full curriculum, and Kanazawa Institute of Technology, a private college of engineering and science in Japan, is one such college. Classes specifically for teaching cultural impact on technology cannot be added to the already busy schedule. Instead, a foreign language curriculum (Chinese) has incorporated cultural topics into its project-based classes. Students are exposed to various cultural issues before they engage in projects of their choice. Throughout the 10 years of the course, science students have expressed strong interest in target culture information and have been choosing cultural themes for their projects over technical subjects. By preparing for their project presentations, they find for themselves norms and values of the target culture, as well as their own, and come to respect them. At the end of the course, ways to apply this process for the workplace are discussed. Student evaluations show that the students have become more confident in 1) their knowledge of the target culture, 2) skills to locate needed information in the target language, 3) strategies to teach themselves foreign language(s), and 4) their ability to adapt themselves to new cultures.