Learning Languages with Lena

I have been working as a language instructor in Mandarin and Russian for over 15 years, both in person and online. During that time I have worked with many students of various school ages. Recently, I have been teaching Russian to high school and elementary school students, where I have developed instructional materials and activities to improve their knowledge and skills. I also have been working remotely with groups of 2nd-5th grade children in an educational enrichment programs in Southern California. I created introductory courses in Mandarin for their after school classes, where I helped my students learn the basic sound system of Mandarin through creating meaningful conversations, which were supplemented with fun activities and games. In addition, I also work as a one-on-one instructor in Mandarin with various ages (elementary school through college), where I have students that are learning Mandarin from scratch and/or need improvement in their classwork.

Even though I still create many grammatical practice activities, games and exercise, I strongly believe that any acquisition of grammar and vocabulary can happen only in context. I work hard to create interactive ways of learning language, including my own stories and dialogues. I encourage my students to read and enjoy language. Recently, I have been exploring the CI and TPRS methods to teach languages. I hope that the knowledge and continuing growth of my own teaching experience will make my students appreciate and love learning languages.

Yet to be added

Graduated Peoples' Friendship University in Russia, with the teaching diploma in addition to certificate in translation. Attended Advanced level Chinese and master program classes in Economic and Trade law in Tianjin University, China.

I am Native Speaker in Russian. I have been raised and received higher education in Russia. I studied Chinese for over 8 years, three of them in Tianjin University, China, where I have completed advanced level Chinese classes and attended Master program in Economic and Trade law in Chinese.