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Full-Time Faculty

Joanne Chen

Joanne Chen  
Chinese Instructor  
Languages and Learning Resources

Education

  • M.A. Art History — Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio, USA
  • B.A. History — National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan

Professor Chen joined Irvine Valley College in 2000. She was born and raised in Taipei, Taiwan. After graduating from National Taiwan University (NTU), she came to the USA to pursue her graduate studies and started to teach Chinese. She has over fifteen years of experience teaching Chinese to high school and college students. Professor Chen volunteers in local Chinese schools, including language teachers' workshops, writing Chinese courses curricula and developing computer aided language learning projects. She has presented over ten academic papers at various Chinese language teaching conferences. Professor Chen utilizes her diverse experiences in traveling, living, and working abroad to make her classes interesting and engaging.

Awards

In 2012, the Board of Directors of the Chinese Language Teachers Association of Southern California (CLTA-SC) elected Professor Joanne Chen as the recipient of the CLERC Teacher of the Year Award for her exceptional contributions to CLTA-SC, offering her expertise in using technology for Chinese education. Each year, the Chinese Language Education and Research Center (CLERC) recognizes Chinese language educators and administrators who have made outstanding contributions to the promotion of Chinese language education in the USA.

Publications

Part-Time Faculty

jingyun-meyer

Jingyun Meyer  
Chinese Instructor  
Languages and Learning Resources

Education

  • M.A. Education — University of California, Irvine
  • M.A. Linguistics and Applied Linguistics — Shanghai Normal University
  • B.A. Teaching Chinese as a Second Language — Shanghai Normal University
  • Single Subject Credential (Mandarin) — University of California, Irvine

Professor Meyer joined Irvine Valley College in 2023. She was born and raised in China. When she was in China, she taught Chinese as a second language to students from all over the world and various age groups in Shanghai Normal University and Donghua University (Shanghai). After she moved to America, she got her second Master’s degree and her teaching credential in teaching Chinese. She also taught Chinese in secondary settings. Her education background helped her be more prepared to answer academic knowledge questions from her students. Her teaching experience prepared her to understand students more and keep reflecting on her own teaching practices. Through her teaching experience, she has been able to create her own style of classroom management and teaching. Her students love her class and consider it a fun and creative environment. Through creating an inclusive classroom culture and student-centered lessons driven by genuine rapport with students, her aim is to foster students' autonomy as lifelong learners.

Yang Zhao

Yang Zhao  
Chinese Instructor  
Languages and Learning Resources

Education

  • Ph.D. East Asian Languages & Cultural Studies — University of California, Santa Barbara, California, USA
  • M.A. Comparative Literature — University of Georgia, Athens, GA, USA
  • B.A. English — University of Nebraska at Kearney, Kearney, NE, USA

Professor Zhao joined Irvine Valley College in 2023. She was born and raised in Xi’an, China. She first came to the U.S. to receive college education and later pursued graduate degrees. She received her Ph.D. in East Asian Languages and Cultural Studies from the University of California, Santa Barbara in 2022. She has previously taught Chinese language and literature classes at the University of Georgia, UC Santa Barbara and UC Irvine.