In my teaching practice, besides delivering the knowledge and skills to use Mandarin, it is my aim to inspire and motivate my students to learn the language. I believe the most efficient language learning happens through students’ own engagement and self-effort. My years of teaching experience have shown that this is vital, especially in England where students have few opportunities to learn and practice Mandarin.

In practice I utilise interactive teaching methods and activities to motivate students to learn and communicate in Mandarin Chinese. I believe that language development happens through social interaction and guided assistance, so that teacher and students have to work together to co-construct meaning in context. I also make a lot of effort to interact with my students throughout the learning process, e.g. to design conversation on various topics of daily life and the rotation of the roles of reading, composition writing, feedback and so on. One of most important principles of my teaching philosophy is to cultivate my students' communicative abilities and to teach them to use the Chinese language in real life.

Some students want to learn Chinese because they will work and live in China. In the lessons, I will introduce aspects of daily life in China, for example daily shopping, polite (formal) and friendly interactions, using public transport, order dishes in restaurant, etc., as well as a brief introduction to history, geography, travel & tourism in China. Through these topics, which would be tailored to the student’s needs, giving a relevance to the subject matter, the student can stimulate his or her interest and motivation to continue with the learning processes.