Our Team
At That’s Mandarin, our people are our best asset – they make the school a rewarding and fun place to both study Chinese and work as a teacher. Our talented, dedicated team has a wide variety of educational and professional backgrounds and are all college educated. While some of our instructors majored in teaching Chinese as a foreign language, others got their undergraduate degrees in economics, literature, history, or law.
A large number of our teachers have also completed graduate programs, allowing us to pair an teacher with an advanced level of knowledge on any particular topic with a student of similar interests. If we don’t currently employ a teacher who fits your specific, advanced Chinese language needs, we will find one who does.
All our teachers are full-time and well compensated for the hard work they do. Each new teacher we hire interns with us for two months before beginning to teach their own classes on a three month trial basis. If after five months they’ve received positive student and teacher reviews, they are hired on a full-time basis. Click HERE to meet our teaching staff.
I began teaching Mandarin Chinese in 2004 in the coastal city of QingDao. I decided to move to Beijing in 2007, and was taken on as a teacher at That’s Mandarin Chinese School in Wudaokou. I was fairly confident that I already had a wealth of experience teaching Mandarin to foreigners, but I soon realised That’s Mandarin had its own unique teaching principles. These were soon shown to be highly effective in overcoming the unique challenges new students face when they begin to learn Chinese. In the past 3 years I have learnt a great deal by applying these principles to teach the many students who have studied at our school. In that time, the school has grown from a small building nestled on a back road in Wudaokou, to having 3 modern facilities – a new and improved Chinese school in Wudaokou, and a second Chinese school in Dongzhimen and a brand new Shanghai branch. The teaching environment has vastly improved, we recently added a coffee shop to our Dongzhimen Chinese school, and now you can learn Chinese in either Beijing or Shanghai thanks to the addition of our new Jingan school. Nonetheless the teaching principles of That’s Mandarin remain the same – albeit with some enhancements as we gain ever more experience.
At our school the teachers and students enjoy the experience of learning Chinese – one student who has been studying here for two years recently commented that he particularly enjoys the passion with which all his teachers have approached their job. With our proven teaching method, and ever improving facilities, I feel confident That’s Mandarin will continue to offer the premier teaching environment for anyone wanting to learn Chinese in China.
Wan Xin, Education Administrator
The Search- After arriving here in Beijing , I tested different language schools and different group classes for about a month. But I quickly realised I was wasting more than half the time in class because I couldn't get the teacher to focus on what I wanted. Suddenly the cheaper price of group classes seemed rather expensive. Now the clock was ticking. I had three months left to pick up as much oral Chinese as possible before starting my job.
Then I ran into That's Mandarin's ad. After my trial lesson, I realized that my vocabulary was embarrassingly limited or totally useless in everyday life. I knew I had to build it up and increase my confidence immediately. That's Mandarin has let me do just that.
The Economics- With That's Mandarin, you learn more per dollar or RMB spent. Don't be fooled by prices alone. What are you actually learning in your class? How much speaking time are you getting? How much control do you have? With one-to-one lessons, the focus is on you and you are learning and improving 100% of the time.
The Results- That's Mandarin's stories are interesting, fun and easy to learn from. I'm amazed at the end of each lesson how much new vocab I have picked up. Now instead of taking my pocket Chinese dictionary with me around town, I grab my notebook from That's Mandarin's lessons -- the new words are immediately applicable to everyday life. A few days ago my notebook came in handy as I flipped through the pages looking for the perfect words to spar with the cab driver. He really got a kick out of it!
Since leaving Beijing, I have continued my classes with That's Mandarin using Skype. I have the exact same teachers as I had in Beijing and pay roughly the same per hour. I am really happy with the results and it's my pleasure to recommend the services and teaching method of That's Mandarin.