Program Director: Dr. Lini Ge Polin

Dr. Lini Ge Polin, Teaching Associate Professor in the Department of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies at UNC-CH, will serve as the program director. Polin received her Ed.D in Curriculum and Instruction from the School of Education at UNC-CH, and M.A. in Journalism and M.A. in Teaching Chinese as a Second Language from the University of Iowa. She has extensive experience in teaching Chinese as a second language in the U.S. and is a recipient of the Student Undergraduate Teaching Award at UNC-CH. Polin is a certified ACTFL Oral Proficiency Interview (OPI) tester in Chinese. Her teaching strengths include technology-enhanced curriculum design, task-based instruction, and performance-based assessment using ACTFL proficiency standards. At UNC-CH, Polin is the Chinese placement coordinator, a study-abroad advisory board member, and a mentor in the TEAM ADVANCE Peer Mentoring Circles. She also serves as the Diversity Liaison and Chair of the DEI Committee of her home department. Polin served as the Chair of the ACTFL Research Special Interest Group and currently serves as the President of the Chinese Language Teachers Association of North Carolina (CLTA-NC). Her research has been published in top-tier journals such as Language Teaching Research and presented at professional conferences including the annual conferences of the American Educational Research Association, ACTFL, FLANC, CLTA-US, CLTA-NC, among others.  

Polin has rich experience with the STARTALK program. She completed an 80-hour intensive course as a participant in the Startalk: Planning for Authentic E-learning program between January-March 2021. In the summer of 2021, she taught in the Winston-Salem State University Startalk Student Program and served as a mentor teacher in the UNC-Greensboro Startalk Chinese Teacher Program. Polin also served as the program director of the 2022-2024 Carolina Asia Center STARTALK Chinese Teacher Program. 

Bonnie Chunmeng Wang teaches Upper School Chinese and serves as the DEE (Diversity, Equity and Engagement) Curriculum Consultant at Durham Academy in Durham, North Carolina. She holds an M.A. in Linguistics from UNC-CH. Wang currently serves as the K-12 representative on the board of the Chinese Language Teachers Association, U.S.A. (CLTA-US), 2nd Vice President of the Foreign Language Association of North Carolina (FLANC), Program Committee Director of the Southern Conference on Language Teaching (SCOLT), and a board member of American Society of Shufa Calligraphy Education (ASSCE). She was awarded 2019 Teacher of the Year by FLANC and served as the President of the Chinese Language Teachers Association of North Carolina (CLTA-NC) during 2019-2021. 

Wang has taught in the UVA STARTALK student program in 2019 and WSSU STARTALK student program in 2021. She served as a mentor teacher for the UNCG STARTALK teacher program in 2021, and a mentor teacher and technology specialist for the 2022-2024 CAC STARTALK Chinese Teacher Program. Wang is a certified ACTFL OPI tester in Mandarin Chinese and has presented at teacher training workshops in various topics at multiple conferences including FLANC, SCOLT, CLTA and ACTFL. Recently, she was the featured presenter at the 2021 ACTFL Spring Learning Series and Summer Learning Series focusing on incorporating social justice in world languages curriculum. 

Qiang Chen is a National Board-Certified language teacher with over 30 years of teaching experience. He taught English as a second language as an Associate Professor at universities in China for over ten years. Over the past 20+ years, he has been teaching English as a second language and Chinese as a foreign language at public schools, colleges and language institutes in the U.S. He is one of the piloting instructors of online Chinese instruction in North Carolina. Currently, Chen is a Chinese instructor at Enloe Magnet High School, Raleigh, North Carolina. He designed the Chinese curriculum from level 1 to level 6 including AP and IB programs for the local school system and has been teaching these courses ever since. Chen has received many teaching awards, including the Yale University Outstanding Educator Award in 2019, and the Chicago University Excellent Educator Award in 2020, among others. Every year in the past decade, Chen’s students won various awards in national and regional Chinese writing and speech contests. 

Chen has extensive experience working with the STARTALK programs. He has been working as a site visitor and a proposal reader for STARTALK Central since 2010 and as the Lead Instructor for STARTALK Chinese Summer Institute at several universities. He currently serves as a mentor teacher for the 2022-2024 CAC STARTALK Chinese Teacher Program. In addition, Chen is an AP Chinese reader and a reader for Chinese teachers’ license exams for the College Board. He has worked as a mentor for teachers and conducted teacher training sessions at many institutes.