I am an American Chinese and a native Chinese speaker. I was born and grew up in China, and came to the USA in 1987. I have been living in this country for 30 years, and have traveled in several countries. Although I am not a native English speaker, I do have experience in teaching English to people who speak English as a foreign language with my BS, MBA degrees, Teaching ESL and EFL certification.

I used to teach Chinese for the afterschool program at Durham Academy for 4 years, and my students at DA ranged from Pre-K to Middle School. During my teaching, I introduced the Chinese culture to my students by teaching songs and legends in simple Chinese which were pertinent to the festive season. I have occasionally compared Chinese culture to Western culture in order to illustrate the differences better and to help further an understanding of Chinese culture. The main intent of my first few lessons are usually to spark interest from the students in learning Chinese, and to gauge the individual Chinese abilities of each student.
My main teaching goal is to enable the students to learn enough linguistic ability in Chinese to communicate orally, and to be able to meet the needs of basic conversation. I hope to help my students learn about Chinese phonetics, grammar and vocabulary, and to have the elementary ability to listen, speak, read and write basic Chinese. I also intend to teach students basic Chinese characters, so that they may learn basic Chinese reading, and to apply these writing skills to words and expressions that they have already learned in order to give a good grasp on the difference between Chinese speaking and writing. I will teach them the correct Chinese punctuation writing format, so that they can carry over their oral ability to writing as well, and to develop their ability to express themselves both in simple spoken and written Chinese. By the end of this study period, I hope to both raise their Chinese to an acceptable level, and to lay the foundation for further Chinese study if they wish to do so.