Zhiqin Wu

I am a native speaker of Mandarin with excellent reading and writing ability in simplified characters and proficiency in traditional characters, as well.  My Master's Degree is in Literature and was earned at Hebei University in 1999. With more than 20 years of foreign language teaching experience at all levels, I have consistently demonstrated excellent oral and written skills in both Mandarin and English. After emigrating from Beijing, China, I completed a one-year Teaching Chinese Certification program at California State University, East Bay, in 2007 and I am also certified to teach AP Chinese.

In my various teaching positions, I have worked with students of all levels and with different interests. Because I love teaching young people and understand their own individual learning styles, I have been successful in adapting my teaching strategies to meet the needs of all students. My classes are not only comprehensive and practical, but also fun. I was teaching Mandarin to English-speaking students in a Chinese immersion program, a full-immersion classroom experience in the 2007-2008 school year. Currently I’m teaching Chinese and Humanities at Indian River Charter High School. I teach Chinese I, III to non-heritage high school students, and also introduce and expose students to Chinese culture. In addition, I taught 71 students Humanities, which includes Chinese culture (Confucianism, Taoism, and Buddhism; poems and novels etc ); Chinese geography, Chinese history (covering all the dynasties), China and the world, and China today.

I use Standards for Foreign Language Learning in the 21st Century and Performance Guideline for K-12 Learners as guidelines. Other resources, like OPI (Oral Proficiency Interview), Linguafolio are also used as reference. I believe vocabulary and structures should be taught in a meaningful, authentic, and communicative context in a sprial way and three modes of communication (interpersonal, interpretive, presentational) should be incorportated into everyday teaching.

Reminiscence: 

Time flies! Three weeks’ program jumped to an end. In this program I met two wonderful teachers, who not only refreshed me with most up-to-date knowledge, but also demonstrated the appropriate ways and approaches about how to apply these methods to teaching practice. I have benefited a lot from their demonstrations. Each of their classes was a demonstration of different teaching approaches. I really love their way to deliver the lectures. Tseng Laoshi, Zhao Laoshi, you are such great teachers! I’ll apply what I learned to my teaching.

I had learned 5C before I attended this program. But only this time in this program did I really understand and was able to disstruction. I am glad I attended this intensive yet very rewarding program. Thank Tseng Laoshi, thank Zhao Laoshi very much! I hope you two can be more teachers’ models.