Catherine completed two Bachelor of Education degrees, English and International Business, at Tianjin Normal University. She has a TEM8 in teaching English and an ICLTA in teaching Mandarin and is now studying for her Masters of Education in Literacy between Chinese and English. Upon graduating Catherine spent her first-year teaching English in a Chinese high school before moving to an international school where she taught Junior Mandarin, English and Math for one year. She then moved to Wellington where she has worked as a year 6 teaching assistant for 3 years. Although she specialized in English, Maths and Physics, she has a particular interest in the teaching of Mandarin. Catherine has led the Junior Native Mandarin course in the school and taught multiple Mandarin courses in the Saturday Academy.

One of Catherine’s new lessons is called Pre-Junior Mandarin(幼小衔接—语文). The course is about the connective Mandarin knowledge between Kinder and local school Year1, for children between 5-7 years old.

The children will learn Pinyin (单韵母，复韵母，整体认读音节, 声调), basic Chinese characters（基本笔画，独体字，字的结构，偏旁部首）, Pre-Year1 Chinese text learning and simple sentence writing. Within the next two terms, children can write simple characters within the right writing order, can read simple stories with pinyin and can make sentences independently after this lesson.