Xiaoyan joined CISS in January 2020. She is a passionate educator as well as an enthusiastic Mandarin teacher.
Before she moved to Scotland with her family in 2007, she was a university lecturer of Children Language Learning and Teaching and Child Psychology in her home city after she received her Master degree in Education Management from the Northeast Normal University. Before her lectureship, she worked on different management posts and organised many activities and university events. During that period, she accumulated invaluable experiences and knowledge as well as a growing interest in education. Particularly, she enjoyed the feeling of fulfilment in changing young people’s lives through her hard work and endeavours in teaching.
After moving to Glasgow, she started teaching different types of Chinese Mandarin short courses and programmes of different levels at the University of the West of Scotland, the University of Glasgow and the company Lenovo. She has also taught at the Glasgow Chinese School for years. At the same time, she had many close relationships with both primary and secondary schools allowing her to share Chinese culture, teach Chinese folk songs, dances and calligraphy, and to help with school talent shows etc. These experiences ignited her greatest passion of teaching Mandarin Chinese in Scotland.
With a fervent love and passion of teaching Chinese language and promoting Chinese culture, after receiving a PGDE qualification at the University of Strathclyde, Xiaoyan worked at Dollar Academy and gained invaluable teaching skills and experiences. In terms of commitment to ongoing professional development, Xiaoyan currently undertakes a range of SQA duties, including Event Verifier for National 5 and Higher Mandarin Chinese.
She believes that “knowledge is power and power can make changes” and she is very enthusiastic to make more contributions to Scotland’s Chinese language learners.
Contact:
The Ramshorn
98 Ingram Street
Merchant City
University of Strathclyde
Glasgow, G1 1EX
xiaoyan.zhou@strath.ac.uk