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Teacher Portrait

Meet Your Teacher

"My goal is to help you acquire Mandarin so deeply and naturally that understanding, speaking and reading feel effortless. It will just fall out of your mouth."

Welcome! I'm Terry Waltz, and I'm passionate about making Mandarin accessible through Comprehensible Input. Forget the drills and embrace the stories. Let's help your brain figure out Chinese together. Turns out, it's really good at it!

🧑‍🏫 Teaching Experience

  • Teaching Mandarin Chinese as a second/foreign language since 1993. NYS Certified Mandarin teacher; ACTFL Superior oral proficiency rating.
  • Has taught hundreds of students ranging from absolute beginners to advanced learners.
  • Lead instructor and teacher trainer for six years at the UHawaii STARTALK Comprehensible Input training, the most extensive and intensive CI-based Chinese instruction workshop ever held.
  • Curriculum developer and teacher trainer specializing in acquisition-driven programs for middle school, high school, college and adult learners.

🎓 Professional Background

  • Ph.D in Applied Linguistics and Second Language Acquisition; MA in Chinese language; MA in Conference Interpreting. BSLA in Chinese, BSLN in Linguistics. (All student loans finally paid off!)
  • Qualified professional translator and interpreter. Handled cabinet-level meetings and negotiations worldwide. Member, American Translators Association, since 1987.
  • Internationally known presenter and author. One of the first teachers to apply Comprehensible Input to the unique challenges of teaching Mandarin.

📚 Books & Publications

  • The leading author producing compelling, unpredictable, accessible Acquisition-Focused Reading (AFR) materials for new readers of Mandarin. These carefully designed texts provide the on-ramp to authentic resources, even for novices.
  • "Zhongwen Bu Mafan!" curriculum for beginning Chinese through Comprehensible Input.
  • 20+ fully illustrated readers (and counting!) for beginning readers of second languages, focusing on Chinese.
  • "TPRS with Chinese Characteristics", the seminal work on the use of Comprehensible Input-based strategies in the teaching of Mandarin.

💡 Innovations

  • Creator of the "Super Seven" concept for focusing input for beginning learners of any language.
  • Creator of the "Cold Character Reading" technique by which beginners read books in Chinese characters with no previous memorization, starting after fewer than 10 hours of instruction.
  • Creator of Tonally Orthographic Pinyin (tones are color-coded and use a unique scheme of capitalization and small letters to make them more memorable. Scratch and sniff is unfortunately impossible...so far...)
  • Leader in applying neuroscience and research into L1 reading to the teaching of Chinese reading to non-native speakers.

🧠 Philosophy of Teaching

Language is not a subject to be studied like math; it is something you acquire just by understanding messages. If you understand the input, your brain does the rest of the work automatically. And most importantly, class should be the best part of your day. It's your chance to hang out in a safe space with good friends and kick back enjoying Chinese.

🐼 Fun Facts

  • Slightly obsessed with pandas (obviously!). And chickens. Sixteen currently in the coop!
  • Has messed around with thirteen languages (so far) from Hawai'ian to Mohawk, Japanese to Dutch, to to the point of being able to get into, if not back out of, trouble using them.
  • Does all her own stunts. And her own artwork.