Semester Project - Any ideas?

[JOUNSARAM]

Semester Project

Background (If you saw this background info in my other post please skip it now.)
I will be using Market Leader next semester at a Korean university. All of my students will be business majors.
Classes will have 20 students each.
I am told that they are capable of having small group discussions, but this remains to be seen.
I have the freedom to design the course as I please.
I have a degree in marketing.

In addition to studying the book I plan on having my students do a semester project.

Project Idea
Korean small and medium sized companies frequently have English language promotional materials and websites that are full of English mistakes. Some websites are completely nonsensical. Note: Please forgive any mistakes I am about to make.

1.) My plan is to break each class into teams of four.
2.) Each team will need to select a local Korean company that conducts international business and review all the methods that they use to communicate in English. For example:

Websites
Promotional materials
Email
Trade shows
Personal Selling
etc.

3.) They will be looking for strengths and weaknesses in the above mentioned areas.
4.) They will formulate a plan to improve their target company's communications.
5.) They will be required to give a presentation using PowerPoint at the end of the semester. They will share their findings.

What do you think about this idea? Any suggestions?

Help!
I would like to create some kind of research tool that students can use to gather data, but I am not a researcher. I think a survey directed at the personnel responsible for international business would be good. Any survey question suggestions?


Have a day!

[bluffer]

Sounds quite a good idea. Just as long as they actually do pick up on the mistakes and dont create any of their own.

You could also swing it as a career-in for the students if they want to work for that particular company. ie at an interview they could say they reviewed.........

Or get them to create a business plan for a new company, launch a new product....

[sbourque]

I assigned a marketing research project when I was teaching undergrads in Russia about 10 years ago. It was a real eye-opener for the students and for me. One of my student teams researched some bookstores, and one store owner got so interested he wanted them to provide him with the results and not share it with anyone, even me!

You probably know a lot more about marketing than I do (I was a humanities major and got my MBA later) but questions on where the company's products are sold, language training given to those who deal with English-speaking customers and suppliers, who does the promotional materials (in-house or outsourced) and who checks for errors--all these might be good starting points for a survey. I'd have most (if not all) the questions of the "check where applicable" variety rather than open-ended.

Good luck!