I came to Randolph College from Princeton University, where I taught for five years. At Randolph, in addition to teaching four levels of Chinese language, and several China-related courses (film, culture, and literature), I like to practice the Five Routines of Soaring Crane Qigong and explore new way of cooking healthy Chinese food. I strive to help my language students sample authentic Chinese food, especially “weird” dishes – my belief is that motivation for high proficiency language skills comes from cravings and talking about good food.

As a teacher-researcher, I strive to research what I teach and use insight from my research to improve teaching and curriculum. My contributions to the field of second language acquisition and pedagogy, since 2007, have been primarily in the areas of (a) discourse analysis in elementary grammar acquisition; (b) computer-assisted learning in elementary tonal acquisition; (c) computer-assisted learning in Mandarin character acquisition; and (d) issues of teaching Chinese in Liberal Arts Colleges.

My publications include: Anything Goes: An Advanced Chinese Reader “无所不谈”, Princeton University Press, 2006; Sample Tests of English for College Students of Science, Beijing University of Technology Press, 1992; and New Edition of Listening Comprehension, Beijing Science and Technology Publishing House, 1991. I am currently editing two articles: “Grammar Development in Conversation: Revisiting Corrective Feedback within the Zone of Proximal Development” and “What Makes Learning Second Language Grammar Difficult? A Response to DeKeyser.”