Certified Chinese Mandarin teacher with an MA in Education and 4 years of international school experience

Find out more about Susie

• Do you speak this language fluently because of your origins or because a teacher inspired you to learn?

  I am a native speaker of Chinese Mandarin. Since growing up in China, I have always been interested in Mandarin as a subject and enjoy Chinese literature. I trained as a Mandarin teacher at Shanghai Normal University where I met lots of professors that were also passionate and knowledgeable about Mandarin. I learnt a lot from these professors and use what I learnt from them to teach my own students.

• Can you name a living, historical or fictional character that you think is the emblematic representative of the language's culture?

  I believe that Confucius is emblematic of Mandarin. He was the first to promote the idea of equality in education. For me, as an educator, it is important to promote an equal education for any and all people willing to learn.

• Is there a typical word, phrase, tradition or behaviour in the language that you particularly like?

  One of my favourite phrases is '有教无类', which means 'education for all without discrimination'. In ancient China, society was divided into a strict societal structure defined not only by money but also your family's cultural background. Confucius decided that education should be accessible to all regardless of your position in society.
  
  It is essential to be fair to treat all the students and helps them based on their own situations.

• Why does speaking this language matter to you?

  Language for me is not only a way for people to communicate but also contains great culture and history.
  
  
  Mandarin as a language, contains all the wisdom of ancient Chinese people. By learning written language, you know how ancient people thought and also why they created the language in different ways.
  
  
  By speaking the language, all the different phrases and words, trying to figure out where they come from, to explore the great history, is fascinating to me.

• What is the main difficulty in learning this language and what can help the process of learning?

  For near 10 years of teaching experience, I think the main difficulty for learning Mandarin will be reading and writing - no matter non-native students, some local can find it tricky as well. But with my teaching, I found analyzing is always helpful (e.g. splitting the character into radical and pronunciation) to help students understand the meaning of the character as a whole.

• Provide a valuable anecdote related to your language learning or your days at school.

  In Mandarin, generally 大 means 'big', 小 means 'small'. I still remember one of my students asked me, why elephant (大象) is literally 'big elephant' even though some baby elephants are quite small and why garlic (大蒜) in mandarin is literally 'big garlic' but there is nothing called 'small garlic' in Mandarin.
  
  There are lots of fun questions like that, me and my students then figure out together, I really enjoy those times and appreciate how seriously my students take learning the language.

• How has travel or a specific trip helped you to increase your skill and knowledge of the language?

  When travelling in Taiwan, I visited the Taibei Museum and learnt a lot to support my teaching of Mandarin. The exhibits in the museum showed where the Chinese original characters come from - tracing from their initial creation, through the ancient characters, traditional and finally thought to their simplified forms. This helps me think about how language is linked to history and human culture.

• What makes you a Superprof in language?

  Firstly, I am a native Mandarin language speaker and was born and raised in mainland China, where the standard Mandarin (Pu Tong Hua) is the official language. This is where I also received my initial teacher training.
  
  Secondly, I have an MA in Education from Newcastle, UK. Combined with a decade of school teaching experience in both international and bilingual schools I believe I am uniquely placed to teach non-native and native speakers and learners of Mandarin.
  
  Thirdly, I am in a cross cultural relationship and the experience this affords me helps me to understand the differences in culture and helps me to draw links between these languages to help my students.
  
  Finally, I love teaching Mandarin. I am a very responsible and experienced teacher, the passion I have for Chinese teaching and various teaching methods. My students enjoy my lessons and I take pride in creating a great rapport and an enjoyable, comfortable learning environment.