1. The Graduate College Travel Summary Presentation
Presented by Jayoung Choi, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of TESOL & Literacy
Kennesaw State University

2. Korean Association for Multicultural Education (KAME), South Korea
The purpose of KAME is to organize, develop, and plan research activities related to multicultural education. The conference theme this year was “working together for a better multicultural society.”
May 23-25, Seoul National University Hoam Faculty House, South Korea, 9-6 on both days
As a scholar and professor of TESOL, Literacy, Bilingual Education, and Multicultural Education, this conference has been always fruitful in expanding my knowledge base in multicultural education especially in Korea and in other countries in this global context.
The Korean Association for Multicultural Education (KAME) is an international conference that has attracted leading scholars in multicultural education across the world. This conference is affiliated with the National Association of Multicultural Education (NAME; and shares the same aims. The conference presents quality papers that address local (Korean) and international issues surrounding multicultural education.
The proposals submitted to this conference go through rigorous peer-refereed process. This international conference is very well attended by researchers, K-12 teachers, college professors, parents, administrators, and teacher trainers who are involved in language education, TESOL, bilingual education, literacy education, and multicultural education both in Korea and other countries.

3. Promoting Multilingualism for Multilingual Society: A Study of Trilingual Preschoolers’ Language Practices
Contextualizing the Study: Multilingualism as a norm & Children growing up as simultaneous or successive trilinguals
Studies of trilingual children’s use of languages in the home and school contexts have received scant attention with the exception of a few key studies (Hoffmann, 1985; Mikes, 1990; Quay, 2001; Wang, 1995; 2015).
The current study joins in several key studies about language practices of multilingual (beyond bilingual) children in the home context in early years, birth through five, through an ethnographic case study approach.
This study reported here is part of a longitudinal, larger research where the researcher explores how her children, two trilingual preschoolers, make sense of and communicate meaning in a multilingual household where Korean, Farsi, and English are spoken in the U.S. context.
I especially document multilingual behaviors and strategies that a five year old boy utilizes to make sense of and express meaning instead of focusing on linguistic development and milestones in the first years as many similar  studies have done.
I utilize a sustainable translanguaging lens to interpret the data. The theoretical framework as well as key relevant studies around language practices of multilingual children are discussed in the subsequent sections.

4. Promoting Multilingualism for Multilingual Society: A Study of Trilingual Preschoolers’ Language Practices Cont.
The gaps in the literature: While there are studies of young bilingual children, there is scarcity of research that has in-depth look at trilingualism of non-Roman lettered languages (With exception of Wang, 2008; 2015). Although this current study does not focus on literacy practices, Smith and Murillo (2015) relatedly noted the need for attention to going beyond bilingual studies in translanguaging research, “research on translanguaging can also identify differences that may exist between the uses and perceptions of multilingual literacies, as opposed to biliteracy, or literacy in two languages” (p. 69).
Longitudinal Ethnographic Case Study of a Mother-Scholar
Data sources: Audio (303) & video (approx. 300 )recordings of talk data, primarily collected from 2.5 until now, 5.0 (daily, weekly, monthly) and Reflective notes/researcher journal that I gathered from birth until now in the home context (daily, weekly, monthly)
Findings: Gyuan seems to engage in complex and varied language practices in making sense of and communicating meaning. In this paper, I focus on translation and borrowing as distinct multilingual phenomena. He seems to use translation to broker for his audience by keeping languages separate even when faced with lexical challenges. He also seems to engage in borrowing to fill in the lexical gap, to mirror language practices of interlocutors, and to increasingly practice and claim an academic and social language from school.

5. Benefit of Travel
It was critically important for me to create PPT and receive feedback from audience for a manuscript that I am in the process of finishing up for publication.
I networked with several K-12 teachers who teach linguistically and culturally diverse students in South Korea by purposefully attending presentations given by them and by having conversations with South Korean educators who were there as audiences in those presentations. My increased knowledge in the challenges and opportunities that these teachers in public education have recently faced as South Korea has become more diverse has led me to conceive a brand-new research project with them.
By attending two-full-day conference, I got to network with scholars in two different states in the U.S. who also came to present their research in KAME, South Korea. We exchanged our business cards and talked at length about collaborative research opportunities.

6. Publication(s)
Choi, J. (2018, May). Promoting multilingualism for multicultural society: A study of trilingual preschoolers’ language practices. Paper presentation at annual international conference of the Korean Association for Multicultural Education (KAME), Seoul National University, Seoul, Korea.
Choi, J. (to be submitted for publication by end of June, 2018). A Child’s Trilingual Language Practices in Korean, Farsi, & English: From a Sustainable Translanguaging Perspective. To be submitted to International Journal of Multilingual Education.