Tian Banchao

My name is Banchao Tian and I have been working at HeadStart since January 2019. I am from China and grew up in the southwest in a small tourism city called Guilin. I studied at Jinan University in Guangzhou, gaining a master degree in Linguistics and a certificate of Teaching Mandarin as a Foreign Language. I have taught Mandarin to secondary students at public schools in Bangkok and Phuket for 8 years prior to my move to HeadStart. In my teaching practice, besides delivering the knowledge and skills of Mandarin, it is my aim to inspire and motivate my students to learn the language. I believe the most efficient language learning happens through students’ own engagement and self-effort. Besides, I believe culture is a crucial concept in language teaching, in a certain sense, language learning is culture learning. Exposure to culture will in turn inspire students' interest in learning the language as well. In my teaching, I often introduce aspects of Chinese culture to my students, e.g. Chinese paper-cut, Chinese calligraphy, Beijing opera, Chinese Food and so on. Outside of classroom I enjoy reading and spending time with my family and cats. I’m a tennis lover and always want to play whenever I have free time.