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I moved to the US in 1993 from my home country, Taiwan, where I worked as a journalist and a history teacher. Since 2010, I have been teaching Chinese at OPRFHS. Teaching my native language to (majority) non-heritage learners has been an extraordinarily rewarding experience.

Most importantly, I enjoy sharing my passion for the Chinese language and culture with my students. The curriculum has never been exactly the same from year to year because I value input from my students and strive to make my classroom experience as enriching and fun as possible. I strongly believe that daily in-class practice is crucial and that applying linguistic and cultural knowledge in contexts beyond the classroom is just as important. With this in mind, I incorporate into my curriculum current events and “culture connections” projects, Chinatown field trips, a Chinese New Year Festival celebration, and biyearly trips to China and Taiwan.

I like to introduce the Chinese language to my students by saying that Chinese is different, not difficult. The language has a reputation of being difficult to learn, but it doesn’t have to be! I take a communicative approach to teaching by making my lessons applicable to daily life. I find that my students learn best from hands-on activities, so I design my classroom activities to be not only informational but also interactive and engaging. In order to best support my students, I participate in the StarTalk training programs and attend conferences and workshops with the Midwest Chinese Teachers Alliance (MCTA), Midwest Taiwanese Mandarin Teacher Association (MTMTA) and The Chinese Language Association of Secondary School (CLASS).