Eileen: Alexandria tutor
Certified Tutor
I am originally from Beijing. After finishing Bachelor degree in Education and Master degree in Business Administration, I began working as a Compliance Auditor. Although I am in the financial industry right now, teaching Chinese is something I have huge passion for, and I want to keep sharing this interesting learning experience with as more students as possible!
In the past I have worked for The Alliance for Global Education and Critical Language Scholarship.
During my two year tutoring career, I taught many different types of students, from college freshmen who never learned any Chinese before and just want try something new in their life, to International business people who already have solid foundation and aim at perfect their language skills.
Let me know your biggest challenge in Chinese learning, and we can work it out together!
Connect with a tutor like Eileen
Undergraduate Degree: Beijing Language and Cultural University - Bachelor in Arts, Education
Graduate Degree: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign - Master of Science, Business Administration and Management
Drum set, Argentine Tango, Film Camera, R studio
- Conversational Mandarin
- Languages
- Mandarin Chinese
- Mandarin Chinese 1
- Mandarin Chinese 2
- Mandarin Chinese 3
- Mandarin Chinese 4
- Other
- Study Skills
- Study Skills and Organization
What is your teaching philosophy?
Passion and interest are the best ways to reach improvement!
What might you do in a typical first session with a student?
The first session will let me dig out why you want to study this, your motivation, and everything you want to improve through the sessions. I will customize the class according to your own needs.
How can you help a student become an independent learner?
I will show the solution, but more importantly, how I come up with that solution. When you work out similar problems, you will know where to start, and which thought to pick up among the thousands of thoughts in your mind.
How would you help a student stay motivated?
I will keep reminding you of why you started learning in the first place. Never forget what made you start the journey, and eventually you will arrive at the destination.
If a student has difficulty learning a skill or concept, what would you do?
First, don't panic. Whenever you feel nervous or lose confidence, you can't do it well. Keep that in mind, and just be patient; give it some time. Leave the problem aside for 20 minutes maybe. (Do you know your brain will still be processing that knowledge even when you are not paying attention to it? Yup, that's how amazing our neural networks are.)
How do you help students who are struggling with reading comprehension?
To be honest, reading comprehension is hard. I don't blame you. Let me teach you how to abstract the general idea of the article. A lot of the times, as long as you can understand 50% of the sentences, you are good to go.
What strategies have you found to be most successful when you start to work with a student?
Don't be shy, but I need to know your weakness. Compared to just focusing on what you're good at, you will improve faster if you fix the biggest shortcomings.
What techniques would you use to be sure that a student understands the material?
I will be the student; you will be the tutor. And now you can try to teach me the material.
How do you build a student's confidence in a subject?
Would it be a bit cliché if I say I will keep encouraging you? But seriously, I will.
How do you adapt your tutoring to the student's needs?
I will make sure I fully understand your need at the beginning of our tutoring session. And I will keep following up with your newest updated needs as well!
What types of materials do you typically use during a tutoring session?
Scratch paper.