After 15+ years of working in the Information Technology industry, I took a 4 year break to volunteer in my child’s school and the Asian American communities. I was elected to serve as the President of the PTA, subsequently the Principal, and Chairperson of the Board, at the local heritage school. After my tenure, I started teaching the adult class at the heritage school since 2004, and a year later at the nationally top-ranked Raleigh Charter High School. My background, briefly, includes a B.S. summa cum laude from Rutgers University in Computer Science and an AP Chinese certification awarded by the U.S. College Board.

I would like to see more quality Chinese professional teachers to develop and continue to update the exciting Chinese curriculum to educate the interested learners.

I was extremely honored to have been invited to be an inaugural reader for the first AP Chinese exam launched in June 2007, and again in June 2008 and June 2009. I was equally honored to author and design the framework of the online Chinese curriculum sponsored by NC Department of Public Instruction, in accordance to the National Standards for Foreign Language and NC World Language requirements. This program has completed the pilot phase via the NC Virtual Public School for a statewide access.

During summer breaks, I offer my leadership and administrative skills as a consultant for the Confucius Institute to lead a selected group of high school students from different counties of our state to participate a summer study program in China.

One of my latest accomplishments is the completion of the first AP Chinese Study Guide that I co-authored, for Barron’s Publishing Company, released on August 2009. The others include invitations to speak at the 2009 ACTFL Convention; and 2009 FLANC (Foreign Language Association of North Carolina) Convention.

我深信「學無止境」以及「無時、無地、無所不學」; 因此經常自我挑戰，自我教育 來滿足自己的求知慾。自從美國大學理事會正式接受AP 中文考試， 我很榮幸有機會參與了暑期培訓, AP 年會, 及 AP 中文閱卷；感覺到自己一直在不斷地學習、不斷地更新。同時， 也更激發了一份對推廣中文教學的使命感， 對自己有著更高的要求。在研習中學到了許多突破的新觀念與教學技巧, 讓我在課堂上的教學活潑了起來。從網路上發掘出日新月異的資料,藉著經過科技調理後而成的補充教材, 希望讓學習更生活化、趣味化, 引起學生們更大的學習動機。

Reminiscence: 

The intensity of the UVA StarTalk program not only gave me the opportunity to update my skills in curriculum design, development and delivery, but the practicum element also offered us an opportunity to turn ‘what’ we learned into ‘how’ to execute what we learned.

In addition to studying under the most effective leadership team headed by Professor Tseng and Ms.Zhao; we, the teacher participants, have also learned from each other by working as teams. I am very honored to be part of the program, and feel strongly that I should give back to the Chinese teacher/student community by actively promoting the Chinese language and culture curriculum, and by providing more support in teaching Chinese as a foreign language.