Peter

I was fortunate to first learn Chinese at school. I picked up a lot more while living in rural Guangxi, working in Shanghai and studying in the southern province of Yunnan. Later I spent a year at Peking University in Beijing (a bit like China's version of Oxford), then graduated from Cambridge with an award-winning Double First in Chinese in 2014. Since then I've worked as an East Asia specialist for the Civil Service, before leaving in 2020 to work in the private sector. I love teaching Chinese at all levels, whether you're a beginner or a veteran.

Tutoring Experience

I taught Mandarin for several years at the UK Ministry of Defence. Prior to this, I gained a teaching qualification at Yangshuo Bilingual Middle School in southern China; during this time I taught over 700 students each week. Currently I teach A-Level Mandarin to several students at a private school in North London.

Tutoring Approach

Contrary to the vast majority of Chinese teachers, my approach is centred on the student and not the tutor. In my view, the best way to learn Mandarin is for the student to do as much guided, active production of the language (speaking and writing) as possible; that way, you can fail faster and reach proficiency much more quickly. I also believe that a tutor who learned Chinese as a second language is a real asset: often it's much better to have someone explain things who had to work it out for themselves. My current students would (I hope!) back me up on this.