Twenty-eight-year-old Brit Chris Parker has been teaching Chinese through online video courses for over three years. Photo: Li Hao/GT

"When I first started learning Chinese, more than two decades ago, there were very few foreigners learning Chinese, let alonebecoming Chinese teachers," said Natalia Nyrova, a 43-year-old Russian who works as a full-fledged Chinese language teacher in Khabarovsk, a city close to the border between Russia and China.

After intensive study and years of living and working in China, Nyrova now works with students from around the world through online language-learning platform italki.com.

"It's always interesting to see my students trying to do Chinese tongue-twisters," she laughed.

These days, Nyrova isn't alone; as Chinese language study grows in popularity across the world, more and more foreigners are taking up Chinese language teaching as their careers. While they might seem to be at an obvious disadvantage compared with native Chinese speakers, non-Chinese teachers offer their own special advantages.

"We can explain different things about Chinese in the student's mother tongue and take into consideration the influence of the mother language on the learning process," Nyrova said. "We also have our own experiences learning Chinese to draw on, which can save our students from various twists and turns." 

John Pasden, a Shanghai-based linguist and founder of Chinese-learning consultancy AllSet Learning, works in collaboration with native speakers teaching expats in Shanghai. Photo: Courtesy of John Pasden

Foreign Chinese teachers in demand

Margarita (pseudonym), a 31-year-old business lawyer from St. Petersburg, has been learning Chinese from Nyrova for two years in an effort to gain an edge in the increasingly competitive business world.

Before taking classes with Nyrova, Margarita studied with two native Chinese speakers, but said she thought that they were not very professional. "In my opinion, they could not teach normal (standard) pronunciation and couldn't explain grammar or phonetics clearly," she said. "Probably, the reason was that they weren't properly trained." By contrast, Nyrova, she said, offers clear explanations and examples.

"We use role-playing models and problem-solving tasks, and all the descriptions are illustrated with pictures," said Margarita.

Another thing that has stood out to Margarita about Nyrova's teaching method is that, from the very beginning, Nyrova insisted on not using pinyin during reading practice, which is a common approach among native teachers. "It was kind of a struggle at first, but not using pinyin paid off later," said Margarita.

 "Other teachers might not agree with my approach, but I ask my students to use pinyin while reading texts as little as possible," Nyrova said. "This forces them to memorize and recognize Chinese characters." It's just one of several tricks of the trade that Nyrova has picked up over the years: "I also advise them to practice handwriting characters, the more the better. Learning Chinese songs and tongue-twisters is also helpful."

Twenty-eight-year-old Chris Parker, a Brit who graduated from Cambridge University with a four-year BA/MA in Chinese studies, is another foreigner who's taken a strong interest in Chinese language pedagogy. Over the course of his own learning process, which spans the past eight years, he's discovered many different ways of learning Chinese, ranging from immersion with native Chinese speakers to long-term self-study. In 2013, his desire to share this accumulated knowledge led to the birth of fluentinmandarin.com, a site and YouTube channel dedicated to teaching Chinese.

 "From learning Chinese myself, I understand that the ways that English speakers want to learn Chinese are sometimes different from the way the language is taught in China," Parker said. "That's why I wanted to share my perspective through online videos, to make Chinese easier to understand."

In Parker's view, traditional Chinese teaching puts too much emphasis on grammar and memorizing vocabulary. For example, one of the first phrases that many students learn, "chi fan" (eating dinner), is often introduced in the context of the grammar structure "verb plus object (v+o)," which can be very hard to understand, he said.

Parker prefers to explain grammar as "building blocks." For example, "Wo zai Beijing liuxue," (I am studying abroad in Beijing) translates directly as "I," "in Beijing," "study abroad." Those are three blocks. He explains each block in English, so that students can figure out how to put the blocks together to form full sentences, and substitute in different words to formulate what they want to say.

"I teach the most important sentence patterns to help students build fluency quicker," he said. 

New opportunities to learn online 

Over the past three years, Parker has developed his own curriculum through more than 100 videos on his website and YouTube channel. So far, his YouTube channel has received over one million views. 

He added that as the number of language-learning platforms and resources expand online, more people around the world are getting the chance to learn Chinese - and some to assume roles as teachers.

Parker said his students hail from many countries, including the US, the UK, New Zealand and even China. Many are professionals who were attracted to his site not only because it allowed them to fit classes around their busy schedules, but because they liked his approach, which is based on Western logic and modes of learning.

Tracy Mehoke, the head of teacher services at italki.com, a platform with 1.5 million users that connects foreign language learners with online teachers and language partners, agreed that the Internet is changing the face of language learning. "In general, more and more people are becoming interested in learning another language, especially Chinese, and it is becoming easier for people to get access to good teachers and good language-learning materials, so the market for learning Chinese will inevitably grow," she said.

Official numbers bear that out. According to statistics on the website of the China National Office for Teaching Chinese as a Foreign Language (better known as Hanban), Chinese has seen an explosion in popularity all over the world in recent years, with the number of learners climbing from around 30 million in 2004 to 100 million in 2014.

 This, in turn, has led to a spike in foreign Chinese teachers. Mehoke said italki currently have 20 foreign Chinese teachers from countries including Indonesia, the UK and Australia, who have taught over 1,000 lessons to nearly 300 students. Among them, 75 percent are professional educators providing structured lessons.  

Are non-native teachers better?

Although foreign Chinese teachers boast unique advantages, there are obvious benefits to learning from native speakers.

No one knows that better than John Pasden, a Shanghai-based linguist and founder of AllSet Learning, a company dedicated to teaching expats Chinese. Pasden, who boasts years of experience with the Chinese language, believes that when it comes to one-on-one teaching, non-native speakers have the most to offer at the lower levels.

"No one knows the Chinese language better than the Chinese, but at the same time it's very hard for native speakers to understand why it's hard to learn the tones of Chinese, or how exactly to make that 'x' or 'r' sound. Non-Chinese teachers with a learner's perspective have a lot to offer, especially to beginners, and for curriculum development," said Pasden, a 38-year-old American who has been living in China for over 16 years.

For example, working as a Chinese coach in cooperation with native speakers, he does more work explaining difficult grammar concepts and doing targeted pronunciation training, as he has a better, more personal sense of learners' specific struggles. "What I don't do is to go over the meaning of a text, practice using vocabulary or do extensive conversation practice in Chinese, which are tasks better suited to native speakers."

Timothée Astier, the founder of ChineseMe, an online Chinese learning community, agrees that starting with a foreign teacher is a good approach, as foreign teachers are more attuned to the needs of learners and are more likely to use innovative teaching materials instead of relying on traditional textbooks.

"Once the student gets the basics (pinyin pronunciation, paying attention to tones, basic grammar), learning Chinese is mostly about learning new words, and practicing the four skills of writing, reading, speaking and listening. When they reach a more advanced level, they can take full advantage of classes with [native] Chinese teachers," said Astier.

Nyrova also works with native Chinese teachers, who collaborate with her on oral and listening lessons. "Sometimes I cooperate with my Chinese partners for special classes on developing learners' speaking or listening skills. But if the learner is quite advanced, or even at an intermediate level, he or she will take regular classes with a native teacher in addition to my lessons, usually once or twice a month, to work on their vocabulary and grammar, and to develop practice skills."

"Non-native Chinese and native Chinese teachers can be complementary," she added. "Students can use the strengths of each to their advantage."