I am Ellen Guo and I have been teaching Chinese to a wide range of non-native speakers for my entire professional career. Based in Shanghai, China, I have a Bachelors degree in Chinese Literature and a Masters degree in Linguistics & Applied Linguistics, specializing in Teaching Chinese as a Second Language.
As a university lecturer for six years, I taught HSK prep courses for local, non-Chinese speakers who were taking the HSK test in order to enter Chinese universities. The course design was more about accumulating systematic knowledge and skills for the test than about actually learning the language. Fortunately for those students, they lived in China and had a chance to regularly practice what they learned in the class. For this reason, they were usually able to take regular university classes together with Chinese students after two years’ language training.
In contrast to rigid HSK training, then I taught Chinese online for four years. The experience was more interesting than the traditional classes, but student progress was often much slower. The online learning materials were usually not well-organized and contained too many topics and vocabularies at once.
Based on my years of experience, my philosophy is that the objective of learning a language is not only to accumulate knowledge, but also to systematically master it as a tool. Using my background teaching Mandarin in different environments, I have created a system I feel is most effective.
According to my system, Mandarin Core, you first need the instructions of how to use Mandarin, the tools.
—— That’s the core 5000 words and 300 grammar structures in total. Once you’ve got them down, you’re speaking Mandarin fluently! The Step-by-Step Mandarin Courses are based on the real lives of Chinese people living in Shanghai today. You’ll be learning about the issues and situations that are most relevant to your own life and reasons for learning Chinese. You will also learn how to use Mandarin fastest when using it to solve problems.
—— Optimize your valuable time with a professional Chinese teacher. Practice what you learn with regular 40-minute online lessons. The main focus is on listening and speaking, discussing topics that are relevant to your life. This keeps discussions fresh and real.
If you’re serious about learning Mandarin Chinese, the step-by-step Mandarin courses and online lessons lets you learn Mandarin Chinese effectively and efficiently.
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